Recognizing Cancer via Somatic and Organic Evolution

Abstract

The fitness of somatic cells of metazoan, the ability of proliferation and survival, depends on microenvironment. In somatic evolution, a mutated cell in a tissue clonally expands abnormally because of its high fitness as normal cells in a corresponding microenvironment. In this study, we propose the cancer cell hypothesis that cancer cells are the mutated cells with two characteristics: clonal expansion and damaging the microenvironment through the behaviours such as producing more poison in metabolism than normal cells. This model provides an explanation for the nature of invasion and metastasis, which are still controversial. In addition, we theoretically reasoned out that normal cells have almost the highest fitness in healthy microenvironments as a result of long-term organic evolution. This inspires a new kind of therapy of cancer, which improving microenvironment to make cancer cells lower in fitness than normal cells and then halt the growth of tumours. This general therapy relies on a mechanism differing from chemotherapy and targeted therapy.