The concept of invasion is useful across a broad range of contexts, spanning from the fine scale landscape of cancer tumors up to the broader landscape of ecosystems. Invasion biology provides extraordinary opportunities for studying the mechanistic basis of contemporary evolution at the molecular level. Although the field of invasion genetics was established in ecology and evolution more than 50 years ago, there is still a limited understanding of how genomic level processes translate into invasive phenotypes across different taxa in response to complex environmental conditions. This is largely because the study of most invasive species is limited by information about complex genome level processes. We lack good reference genomes for most species. Rigorous studies to examine genomic processes are generally too costly. On the contrary, cancer studies are fortified with extensive resources for studying genome level dynamics and the interactions among genetic and non-genetic mechanisms. Extensive analysis of primary tumors and metastatic samples have revealed the importance of several genomic mechanisms including higher mutation rates, specific types of mutations, aneuploidy or whole genome doubling and non-genetic effects. Metastatic sites can be directly compared to primary tumor cell counterparts. At the same time, clonal dynamics shape the genomics and evolution of metastatic cancers. Clonal diversity varies by cancer type, and the tumors’ donor and recipient tissues. Still, the cancer research community has been unable to identify any common events that provide a universal predictor of “metastatic potential” which parallels findings in evolutionary ecology. Instead, invasion in cancer studies depends strongly on context, including order of events and clonal composition. The detailed studies of the behavior of a variety of human cancers promises to inform our understanding of genome level dynamics in the diversity of invasive species and provide novel insights for management.

中文翻译：

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生物入侵的基因组过程：从入侵物种到癌症转移再回来

入侵的概念在广泛的背景下很有用，从癌症肿瘤的精细景观到更广泛的生态系统景观。入侵生物学为在分子水平上研究当代进化的机制基础提供了非凡的机会。尽管 50 多年前在生态学和进化中建立了入侵遗传学领域，但对基因组水平过程如何转化为响应复杂环境条件的不同分类群的入侵表型的理解仍然有限。这主要是因为对大多数入侵物种的研究受到有关复杂基因组水平过程的信息的限制。对于大多数物种，我们缺乏良好的参考基因组。检查基因组过程的严格研究通常成本太高。相反，癌症研究拥有广泛的资源，可用于研究基因组水平动态以及遗传和非遗传机制之间的相互作用。对原发性肿瘤和转移样本的广泛分析揭示了几种基因组机制的重要性，包括更高的突变率、特定类型的突变、非整倍体或全基因组加倍和非遗传效应。转移部位可以直接与原发肿瘤细胞对应物进行比较。与此同时，克隆动力学塑造了转移性癌症的基因组学和进化。克隆多样性因癌症类型以及肿瘤的供体和受体组织而异。尽管如此，癌症研究界仍无法确定任何常见事件，这些事件提供了与进化生态学研究结果相似的“转移潜能”的通用预测因子。反而，癌症研究中的入侵在很大程度上取决于背景，包括事件的顺序和克隆组成。对各种人类癌症行为的详细研究有望帮助我们了解入侵物种多样性的基因组水平动态，并为管理提供新的见解。