Cell competition in liver carcinogenesis

Figure 1 Modes of canonical cell competition. A: Wild type cells (dark brown) are endowed with higher fitness (winner phenotype) compared to rare altered cells (loser phenotype

Figure 2 Liver repopulation and liver carcinogenesis. Top: In the context of persistent, widespread tissue damage, transplanted homotypic cells with normal fitness (dark brown) can outcompete resident damaged cells (light brown) and slowly repopulate nearly the entire tissue, without exceeding tissue boundaries. However, in the absence of normal transplanted hepatocytes, endogenous cells persist for at least several months; Bottom: In a similar context of persistent, widespread tissue damage, transplanted homotypic cells with normal fitness and with a pre-neoplastic phenotype (dark yellow) can outcompete resident damaged cells and form hepatic nodules that progress to cancer. The same pre-neoplastic cells do not grow following transplantation in a context of normal cell fitness in vivo (see text for details).