Promoting extinction or minimizing growth? The impact of treatment on trait trajectories in evolving populations

Raatz, Michael; Traulsen, Arne

doi:10.1101/2022.06.17.496570

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 85 publications

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“…On the other hand, if type 1 has an increased birth rate (transmission rate in the epidemiology case) but an identical death rate relative to type 2, type 1 is favored by natural selection but disfavored by noise-induced selection. Thus, all else being equal, reducing the death rate is generically more favorable than increasing the birth rate by an analogous amount, an observation that has been made in finite population models in epidemiology (Parsons et al, 2018), social evolution (McLeod and Day, 2019a), life-history evolution (Alexander and Wahl, 2008), and cancer biology (Raatz and Traulsen, 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Eco-evolutionary dynamics for finite populations and the noise-induced reversal of selection

Bhat,

Guttal

2024

Preprint

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Theoretical studies from diverse areas of population biology have shown that demographic stochasticity can substantially impact evolutionary dynamics in finite populations, including scenarios where traits that are disfavored by natural selection can nevertheless increase in frequency through the course of evolution. Historically, most general analytic frameworks have either restricted themselves to models with constant or deterministically varying total population size or have resorted to dynamically insufficient formulations. Here, we analytically describe the eco-evolutionary dynamics of finite populations from demographic first principles to investigate how noise-induced effects can alter the evolutionary fate of populations in which total population size may vary stochastically over time. Starting from a generic birth-death process describing a finite population of individuals with discrete traits, we derive a set of stochastic differential equations (SDEs) that recover well-known descriptions of evolutionary dynamics such as the replicator-mutator equation, the Price equation, and Fisher’s fundamental theorem in the infinite population limit. For finite populations, our SDEs reveal how stochasticity can induce a directional evolutionary force termed ‘noise-induced selection’ via two distinct mechanisms, one that operates over relatively faster (ecological) timescales and another that is only apparent over longer (evolutionary) timescales. Despite arising from the stochasticity of finite systems, the effects of noise-induced selection are predictable and may oppose natural selection. In some cases, noise-induced selection can even reverse the direction of evolution predicted by natural selection. By extending and generalizing some standard equations of population genetics, we thus describe how noise-induced selection appears alongside and interacts with the more well-understood forces of natural selection, neutral drift, and transmission effects (mutation/migration) to determine the eco-evolutionary dynamics of finite populations of non-constant size.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Eco-evolutionary dynamics for finite populations and the noise-induced reversal of selection

Bhat,

Guttal

2024

Preprint

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Understanding and leveraging phenotypic plasticity during metastasis formation

Shah,

Philipp,

Giaimo

et al. 2023

npj Syst Biol Appl

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Cancer metastasis is the process of detrimental systemic spread and the primary cause of cancer-related fatalities. Successful metastasis formation requires tumor cells to be proliferative and invasive; however, cells cannot be effective at both tasks simultaneously. Tumor cells compensate for this trade-off by changing their phenotype during metastasis formation through phenotypic plasticity. Given the changing selection pressures and competitive interactions that tumor cells face, it is poorly understood how plasticity shapes the process of metastasis formation. Here, we develop an ecology-inspired mathematical model with phenotypic plasticity and resource competition between phenotypes to address this knowledge gap. We find that phenotypically plastic tumor cell populations attain a stable phenotype equilibrium that maintains tumor cell heterogeneity. Considering treatment types inspired by chemo- and immunotherapy, we highlight that plasticity can protect tumors against interventions. Turning this strength into a weakness, we corroborate current clinical practices to use plasticity as a target for adjuvant therapy. We present a parsimonious view of tumor plasticity-driven metastasis that is quantitative and experimentally testable, and thus potentially improving the mechanistic understanding of metastasis at the cell population level, and its treatment consequences.

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Promoting extinction or minimizing growth? The impact of treatment on trait trajectories in evolving populations

Cited by 2 publications

References 85 publications

Eco-evolutionary dynamics for finite populations and the noise-induced reversal of selection

Eco-evolutionary dynamics for finite populations and the noise-induced reversal of selection

Understanding and leveraging phenotypic plasticity during metastasis formation

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