A Game Theoretical Perspective on the Somatic Evolution of Cancer

TL;DR

This paper explores how game theory models the evolution of cancer cells within tumors, highlighting its potential to understand tumor dynamics and inform new therapeutic strategies.

Contribution

It reviews the application of game theory to cancer evolution, emphasizing its role in understanding tumor cell interactions and guiding therapy development.

Findings

Game theory helps model tumor cell competition and cooperation.

Application of game theory offers insights into tumor progression.

Potential for game theory to inform adaptive cancer therapies.

Abstract

Environmental and genetic mutations can transform the cells in a co-operating healthy tissue into an ecosystem of individualistic tumour cells that compete for space and resources. Various selection forces are responsible for driving the evolution of cells in a tumour towards more malignant and aggressive phenotypes that tend to have a fitness advantage over the older populations. Although the evolutionary nature of cancer has been recognised for more than three decades (ever since the seminal work of Nowell) it has been only recently that tools traditionally used by ecological and evolutionary researchers have been adopted to study the evolution of cancer phenotypes in populations of individuals capable of co-operation and competition. In this chapter we will describe game theory as an important tool to study the emergence of cell phenotypes in a tumour and will critically review some of its applications in cancer research. These applications demonstrate that game theory can be used to understand the dynamics of somatic cancer evolution and suggest new therapies in which this knowledge could be applied to gain some control over the evolution of the tumour.