TY - JOUR
T1 - Overshoot during phenotypic switching of cancer cell populations
AU - Sellerio, Alessandro L.
AU - Ciusani, Emilio
AU - Ben-Moshe, Noa Bossel
AU - Coco, Stefania
AU - Piccinini, Andrea
AU - Myers, Christopher R.
AU - Sethna, James P.
AU - Giampietro, Costanza
AU - Zapperi, Stefano
AU - La Porta, Caterina A M
PY - 2015/10/23
Y1 - 2015/10/23
N2 - The dynamics of tumor cell populations is hotly debated: do populations derive hierarchically from a subpopulation of cancer stem cells (CSCs), or are stochastic transitions that mutate differentiated cancer cells to CSCs important? Here we argue that regulation must also be important. We sort human melanoma cells using three distinct cancer stem cell (CSC) markers-CXCR6, CD271 and ABCG2-and observe that the fraction of non-CSC-marked cells first overshoots to a higher level and then returns to the level of unsorted cells. This clearly indicates that the CSC population is homeostatically regulated. Combining experimental measurements with theoretical modeling and numerical simulations, we show that the population dynamics of cancer cells is associated with a complex miRNA network regulating the Wnt and PI3K pathways. Hence phenotypic switching is not stochastic, but is tightly regulated by the balance between positive and negative cells in the population. Reducing the fraction of CSCs below a threshold triggers massive phenotypic switching, suggesting that a therapeutic strategy based on CSC eradication is unlikely to succeed.
AB - The dynamics of tumor cell populations is hotly debated: do populations derive hierarchically from a subpopulation of cancer stem cells (CSCs), or are stochastic transitions that mutate differentiated cancer cells to CSCs important? Here we argue that regulation must also be important. We sort human melanoma cells using three distinct cancer stem cell (CSC) markers-CXCR6, CD271 and ABCG2-and observe that the fraction of non-CSC-marked cells first overshoots to a higher level and then returns to the level of unsorted cells. This clearly indicates that the CSC population is homeostatically regulated. Combining experimental measurements with theoretical modeling and numerical simulations, we show that the population dynamics of cancer cells is associated with a complex miRNA network regulating the Wnt and PI3K pathways. Hence phenotypic switching is not stochastic, but is tightly regulated by the balance between positive and negative cells in the population. Reducing the fraction of CSCs below a threshold triggers massive phenotypic switching, suggesting that a therapeutic strategy based on CSC eradication is unlikely to succeed.
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U2 - 10.1038/srep15464
DO - 10.1038/srep15464
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84945285698
VL - 5
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
SN - 2045-2322
M1 - 15464
ER -