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Essays Biochem 2021 Apr 9. Epub 2021 Apr 9.

Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Stochastic gene expression causes phenotypic heterogeneity in a population of genetically identical bacterial cells. Such non-genetic heterogeneity can have important consequences for the population fitness, and therefore cells implement regulation strategies to either suppress or exploit such heterogeneity to adapt to their circumstances. By employing time-lapse microscopy of single cells, the fluctuation dynamics of gene expression may be analysed, and their regulatory mechanisms thus deciphered. Read More

Cancers (Basel) 2021 Mar 18;13(6). Epub 2021 Mar 18.

Cell Plasticity and Epigenetics Lab. Cancer Research UK-Manchester Institute, The University of Manchester, Alderley Park, SK10 4TG, UK.

Cancer development can be defined as a process of cellular and tissular microevolution ultimately leading to malignancy. Strikingly, though this concept has prevailed in the field for more than a century, the precise mechanisms underlying evolutionary processes occurring within tumours remain largely uncharacterized and rather cryptic. Nevertheless, although our current knowledge is fragmentary, data collected to date suggest that most tumours display features compatible with a diverse array of evolutionary paths, suggesting that most of the existing macro-evolutionary models find their avatar in cancer biology. Read More

Elife 2021 Mar 17;10. Epub 2021 Mar 17.

Centre for BioSystems Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.

Phenotypic (non-genetic) heterogeneity has significant implications for the development and evolution of organs, organisms, and populations. Recent observations in multiple cancers have unraveled the role of phenotypic heterogeneity in driving metastasis and therapy recalcitrance. However, the origins of such phenotypic heterogeneity are poorly understood in most cancers. Read More

Nat Rev Cancer 2021 Mar 16. Epub 2021 Mar 16.

Cancer Genome Evolution Research Group, University College London Cancer Institute, London, UK.

The observation and analysis of intra-tumour heterogeneity (ITH), particularly in genomic studies, has advanced our understanding of the evolutionary forces that shape cancer growth and development. However, only a subset of the variation observed in a single tumour will have an impact on cancer evolution, highlighting the need to distinguish between functional and non-functional ITH. Emerging studies highlight a role for the cancer epigenome, transcriptome and immune microenvironment in functional ITH. Read More

Breast Cancer 2021 Mar 15. Epub 2021 Mar 15.

Immunology Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.

Intricacy in treatment and diagnosis of breast cancer has been an obstacle due to genotype and phenotype heterogeneity. Understanding of non-genetic heterogeneity mechanisms along with considering role of genetic heterogeneity may fill the gaps in landscape painting of heterogeneity. The main factors contribute to non-genetic heterogeneity including: transcriptional pulsing/bursting or discontinuous transcriptions, stochastic partitioning of components at cell division and various signal transduction from tumor ecosystem. Read More