Cancer Flashcards
cancer
- disease of the DNA where malignant cell lineages grow at the expense of surrounding tissues and, eventually, the entire organism
cancer development (2)
- organisms have multiple controls to prevent or delay cancer
- tumours eventually escape control by a process of evolution by NS at the cellular/tissue level
how are cancer cells selection for
- among cancer cells, NS favours mutant cell lines that are less and less responsive to growth-controlling forces of the organism
cancer conflict
- involved a conflict between the individual (organism) and the cell lineage (cells)
apoptosis (2)
- cell self-sacrifice (programmed suicide)
- involved in:
- sculpting of organism during development
- eliminating old, damaged, or malfunctioning cells
- eliminating infected or malignant cells
cancer vs apoptosis
- cancer (3)
- cell selfishness
- favoured by cell-level selection
- opposed by organismal-level selection
cancer vs apoptosis
- apoptosis (3)
- cell altruism (one sacrifice for well-being of population)
- opposed by cell-level selection
- favoured by organismal-level selection
examples of conflict across levels of organization (4)
- individuals in populations or in social groups
- cells in multicellular organisms
- organelles in cells
- transposable elements in genomes
outcome of conflict between levels
- compromise of selection acting at each of the levels
compromise of selection at different levels
- depends on balance of
1. amount of genetic variance at each level
2. relative rate of turnover of the units at each of the levels
can NS happen at any level?
- yes, as long as units at each level fulfill Darwin’s 4 postulates of evolution by NS (turnover, variability, heritability, differential [non-random] reproductive success)
examples of multilevel selection (3)
- sex ratio evolution in subdivided populations (social spiders)
- pathogen virulence
- cancer and multicellularity
what proportions of males:females are expected in populations (2)
- 1:1 ratio
- fisher’s sex ratio principle
fisher’s sex ratio principle (2)
- greater reproductive success of rare sex should drive sex ratio to 1:1; 1:1 stable equilibrium ratio
- within-group selection and the case for most species
social spider colonies (3)
- isolated population lineages
- 100s-1000s of colonies grow, proliferate, and go extinct with little or no mixing with one another
- only large colonies give rise to daughter colonies
can biased sex ratios in social spiders be maintained by ‘group level’ selection
yes, Darwin’s 4 postulates apply at the colony level in social spiders
social spider colonies: turnover (2)
many colonies with high turnover:
- 100s-1000s of colonies
- high colony turnover
social spider colonies: heritability and variation (2)
heritable variation at the colony level:
- colonies founded by one to a few females
- little or no mixing (gene flow) among colony lineages
social spider colonies: differential (non random) reproductive success
colony-level advantage of overproducing females
- only large colonies give rise to daughter colonies
why do young social spider colonies have more femae-bias
- younger colonies have had less time for within-selection to act
how does migration rate affect female-bias in social spider (2)
- more migration = less variation between-colonies
- more migration will favour 1:1 sex ratio/within-colony selection
sex-ratio: when only large cells proliferate (2)
- no matter the starting ratio, the ratio will tend toward a heavily female-biased ratio
- favour between-colony selection
sex-ratio: all colonies are equally likely to proliferate (2)
- no matter the starting ratio, the ratio will tend toward 1:1
- favour within-colony selection
sex ratio: within-group selection only
- 1:1 sex ratio