ReviewThe competitive nature of cells
Section snippets
A genetic network for cell competitiveness
The possibility that cells of multicellular organisms may compete with one another has been postulated several times over the past two centuries. In 1888, Wilhelm Roux proposed the idea of a cellular struggle for survival during development [1]. Wilhelm Roux transferred Charles Darwin's theory of the struggle for existence to the fight among cells and “parts” of the organism in the process of ontogenesis. As evidence for the conflict between cell types, he referred to pathological processes in
Revealing cellular fitness
“The surest foundation is quality.”
Andrew Carnegie.
To achieve epigenetic modulation, cell competition must be enabled genetically. But by what means is cell competitiveness assessed and compared from cell to cell? Some of the genes involved in this process are starting to be identified, and it appears that endocytic internalization of extracellular ligands could be one of the principles by which cell competition is implemented on a population basis [6].
While endocytosis has traditionally been
Stem cells and cell competition
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble…
And if I stay it will be double!!!!
“Combat Rock”. The Clash, 1982
Adult stem cells are often found at specific locations called niches that provide the special tissue microenvironment required for the stem cell to maintain a stable undifferentiated state [33], [34], [35]. Very much like a young girl in the dilemma to leave the family house, the daughters of proliferating stem cells must face the fate decision whether to remain in the
Acknowledgments
We thank O. Fernandez-Capetillo and C. Rhiner for reading the manuscript and suggestions. Work is supported by a Caja Madrid-CNIO junior group leader grant to EM.
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Apoptotic Cell Clearance in Development
2015, Current Topics in Developmental BiologyCompetitive cell interactions in cancer: A cellular tug of war
2013, Trends in Cell BiologyCitation Excerpt :An important notion that has emerged from several studies is that mutations in many oncogenes or tumor-suppressor genes have the ability to alter the competitive status of cells, turning them into ‘losers’ [9,11–15] or ‘winners’ [8,10,16–21] (supercompetitors) with respect to normal cells. The correlation between cancer genes and cell competition has led to the hypothesis that competitive cell interactions may play a key role during cancer formation [7,22–26]. Indeed, several reports indicate that normal and precancerous cells can engage in hostile interactions.
Competitive interactions of cancer cells and normal cells via secretory microRNAs
2012, Journal of Biological ChemistryCitation Excerpt :Competitive interactions among cells are the basis of many homeostatic processes in biology. In Drosophila, normal epithelial cells compete with transformed ones for individual survival, which is a process called cell competition (1, 2). If a given group of cells was exposed to some stress, it would be separated into subpopulations of cells with different levels of damage.
Interactions between normal and transformed epithelial cells: Their contributions to tumourigenesis
2011, International Journal of Biochemistry and Cell BiologyFlower forms an extracellular code that reveals the fitness of a cell to its neighbors in Drosophila
2010, Developmental CellCitation Excerpt :We do not yet know how the alternative splicing is regulated. The simplest possibility is that when cells competing unsuccessfully for extracellular resources are deprived of survival factors (Diaz and Moreno, 2005), they are also depleted from some crucial splicing factors and default splicing will result in the formation of the normally repressed Lose forms. The observation that fweLose upregulation was usually detected throughout the entire loser clone and not just at clone borders could be the consequence of a mechanism that propagates the “loser” state in outcompeted clones.