Recently Hausser and Alon (2019, 2020) have argued that trade-offs in the evolution of a tumor constrain optimal traits. They describe a set of archetypical gene expression profiles, and represent different cancer types and subtypes as falling within a space of trade-offs between archetypes that maximize the performance of different tasks typically associated with the cancer cell phenotypic profile, sometimes called the “hallmarks” of cancer: "cell division, biomass and energy production, lipogenesis, immune interaction, and invasion and tissue remodeling." On this picture, intertumor heterogeneity can be explained in part as a product of these selective trade-offs at work in different stages of cancer progression, whereas intratumor heterogeneity is due to local variations in selective trade- offs. The aim of this paper is to critically assess this family of models. In particular, to what extent can the inter- and intra-tumor heterogeneity of cancer be explained as a product of selective trade-offs? How much of the heterogeneity we see is a product or byproduct of selection, versus an analogue of "drift"? Are these five "universal" tasks exhaustive? More generally, what are the advantages of this framework, as a heuristic for discovery and prediction, and what are the limits of representing a cancer cell as analogous to an organism, facing selective trade-offs?

中文翻译：

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测试多任务癌症进化：我们如何测试癌症的生态假说？

最近，Hausser和Alon（2019，2020）认为，肿瘤进化过程中的取舍限制了最佳性状。他们描述了一组原型基因表达谱，并代表了不同的癌症类型和亚型，它们处于原型之间的取舍空间内，这些原型可以最大化通常与癌细胞表型谱相关的不同任务的执行，有时也称为“标志”癌症：“细胞分裂，生物量和能量产生，脂肪生成，免疫相互作用以及侵袭和组织重塑”。在这张照片上，肿瘤间异质性可以部分解释为在癌症进展的不同阶段工作中这些选择性折衷的产物，而肿瘤内异质性则是由于选择性折衷的局部变化所致。本文的目的是严格评估该系列模型。特别是，在何种程度上可以将肿瘤间和肿瘤内异质性解释为选择性权衡的产物？与“漂移”的类似物相比，我们看到多少是选择的产物或副产物？这五个“通用”任务是否详尽无遗？更一般而言，作为一种发现和预测的启发式方法，该框架的优点是什么？将癌细胞表示为类似于生物体并面临选择权衡的局限性是什么？与“漂移”的类似物？这五个“通用”任务是否详尽无遗？更一般而言，作为一种发现和预测的启发式方法，此框架的优势是什么？将癌细胞表示为类似于生物体的面临着选择权衡的局限性是什么？与“漂移”的类似物？这五个“通用”任务是否详尽无遗？更一般而言，作为一种发现和预测的启发式方法，此框架的优势是什么？将癌细胞表示为类似于生物体的面临着选择权衡的局限性是什么？