Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 15, 2025

The Drosophila Imaginal Disc Tumor Model: Visualization and Quantification of Gene Expression and Tumor Invasiveness Using Genetic Mosaics
Published on: October 6, 2016
The Hallmarks of Cancer as Ecologically Driven Phenotypes
1Department of Medicine, Duke Cancer institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, United States.
Abstract:
Ecological fitness is the ability of individuals in a population to survive and reproduce. Individuals with increased fitness are better equipped to withstand the selective pressures of their environments. This paradigm pertains to all organismal life as we know it; however, it is also becoming increasingly clear that within multicellular organisms exist highly complex, competitive, and cooperative populations of cells under many of the same ecological and evolutionary constraints as populations of individuals in nature. In this review I discuss the parallels between populations of cancer cells and populations of individuals in the wild, highlighting how individuals in either context are constrained by their environments to converge on a small number of critical phenotypes to ensure survival and future reproductive success. I argue that the hallmarks of cancer can be distilled into key phenotypes necessary for cancer cell fitness: survival and reproduction. I posit that for therapeutic strategies to be maximally beneficial, they should seek to subvert these ecologically driven phenotypic responses.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Adaptive Mechanisms in Cancer Cells
Some of the advantages that cancer cells have on normal cells include - enhanced ability to divide without terminally differentiating, induce new blood vessel formation,...
Cancers Originate from Somatic Mutations in a Single Cell
What is Cancer?
Although people have known about cancer for centuries, it was only in 1761 that Giovanni Morgagni of Padua performed a detailed autopsy of...
Cancer
Cancer Stem Cells and Tumor Maintenance
Cancer stem cells are thought to originate from tissue-specific normal stem cells or progenitor cells. The normal stem cells usually reside in...
Tumor Progression
Colon cancer is one of the best-documented examples of tumor progression. Early mutation in the APC gene in colon cells causes a small growth on the colon wall called a polyp. With time, this polyp grows into a benign, pre-cancerous tumor. Further...

