Insights From the Ecology of Information to Cancer Control

Abstract

Uniquely in nature, living systems must acquire, store, and act upon information. The survival and replicative fate of each normal cell in a multicellular organism is determined solely by information obtained from its surrounding tissue. In contrast, cancer cells as single-cell eukaryotes live in a disrupted, heterogeneous environment with opportunities and hazards. Thus, cancer cells, unlike normal somatic cells, must constantly obtain information from their environment to ensure survival and proliferation. In this study, we build upon a simple mathematical modeling framework developed to predict (1) how information promotes population persistence in a highly heterogeneous environment and (2) how disruption of information resulting from habitat fragmentation increases the probability of population extinction. Because (1) tumors grow in a highly heterogeneous microenvironment and (2) many cancer therapies fragment tumors into isolated, small cancer cell populations, we identify parallels between these 2 systems and develop ideas for cancer cure based on lessons gleaned from Anthropocene extinctions. In many Anthropocene extinctions, such as that of the North American heath hen ( Tympanuchus cupido cupido), a large and widespread population was initially reduced and fragmented owing to overexploitation by humans (a “first strike”). After this, the small surviving populations are vulnerable to extinction from environmental or demographic stochastic disturbances (a “second strike”). Following this analogy, after a tumor is fragmented into small populations of isolated cancer cells by an initial therapy, additional treatment can be applied with the intent of extinction (cure). Disrupting a cancer cell’s ability to acquire and use information in a heterogeneous environment may be an important tactic for causing extinction following an effective initial therapy. Thus, information, from the scale of cells within tumors to that of species within ecosystems, can be used to identify vulnerabilities to extinction and opportunities for novel treatment strategies.

Ecology of Human Medical Enterprises: From Disease Ecology of Zoonoses, Cancer Ecology Through to Medical Ecology of Human Microbiomes

“…Cancer cells must constantly obtain information from their environment to ensure survival and proliferation. Whelan et al (2020) propose to eradicate cancer cell by information disruption, similar to habitat fragmentation driving population extinction. Schmidt, 2017;Whelan et al, 2020;Bukkuri and Adler, 2021;Miller et al, 2021 Cancer heterogeneity and genome instability: Heterogeneity is a fundamental property of cancer cells within a tumor, both genetically and phenotypically.…”

Special Collection on Ecological and Evolutionary Approaches to Cancer Control: Cancer Finds a Conceptual Home

“…26 Chris Whelan, Stan Avdieiev, and Robert Gatenby explore the ways that information acquisition and use by organisms in ecosystems may inspire strategies to exploit the importance of information acquisition by cancer cells and how to disrupt their ability to obtain and use that information. 27 They build upon a simple mathematical modeling framework developed to predict how disruption of information resulting from human-caused habitat fragmentation decreases the probability of population persistence. Because many chemotherapies fragment tumors into isolated, small cancer cell populations, Whelan et al identify parallels between these 2 systems, and they develop ideas for cancer cure based on lessons gleaned from Anthropocene extinctions.…”