Trends in Cancer
Volume 3, Issue 2, February 2017, Pages 79-88
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Opinion
The Heterocellular Emergence of Colorectal Cancer

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trecan.2016.12.004Get rights and content
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Solid tumors contain multiple heterotypic cell types and should be considered to be heterocellular systems.

Heterotypic cell types can differentially process signals. When different cells interact (via heterocellular signaling) they expand their collective signal-processing potential to achieve emergent heterocellular phenotypes.

Cancer is an emergent phenotype that supervenes upon heterocellular signaling.

Perturbing heterocellular signaling can destabilize malignant systems as treatments for cancer.

Tissues contain multiple different cell types and can be considered to be heterocellular systems. Signaling between different cells allows tissues to achieve phenotypes that no cell type can achieve in isolation. Such emergent tissue-level phenotypes can be said to ‘supervene upon’ heterocellular signaling. It is proposed here that cancer is also an emergent phenotype that supervenes upon heterocellular signaling. Using colorectal cancer (CRC) as an example, I review how heterotypic cells differentially communicate to support emergent malignancy. Studying tumors as integrated heterocellular systems – rather than as solitary expansions of mutated cells – may reveal novel ways to treat cancer.

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