- This paper assumes angiogenic factors are a public good, meant to increase vasculature within tissues thus providing oxygen for cell function and survival.
- Def: Clonal Selection Theory [cancer results when natural selection sorts among genetically distinct clones within developing and established tumors, favoring those with malignant traits.
- This public good is assumed to be shared equally until "free-rider" clones (a concept derived from evolutionary game theory) arrive in the system and utilize the resources without contributing energy [in the form of ATP] to angiogenesis, and instead allocate resources towards proliferation.
- This focus on proliferation allows the cheating clones a selection advantage, which out-competes the advantage of their angiogenic counterparts.
- As cheater clones populate the tumor, cells grow further away from the oxygen source (as they are not secreting angiogenic factors) to which focal necrosis becomes inevitable.
- This necrosis harms the tumor, however this is irrelevant to the cheater as selection acts towards reproduction of the individual.
- Inq: How common are mutations that lead to a focus on proliferation? Hyp: This should be quite common seeing as the driving force behind selection is reproduction, so mutated cells introduced to the system might not have a genotype that abides to the normal functioning for the system.