Abstract IA27: The patient biosphere: Tumors live in people

Abstract

Abstract Ecosystems are interactive systems involving communities of species and their abiotic environment. Tumors are ecosystems in which cancer cells act as invasive species interacting with native host cell species. As they grow, tumors fundamentally alter their microenvironment, disrupting the homeostasis of the host organ and eventually the patient as a whole. Lethality is the ultimate result of deregulated cell signaling and regulatory mechanisms as well as inappropriate host cell recruitment and activity that lead to the death of the patient. These processes have striking parallels to the framework of ecological biology: multiple interacting ecosystems (organ systems) within a larger biosphere (body), alterations in species stoichiometry (host cell types), resource cycling (cellular metabolism and cell-cell signaling), and ecosystem collapse (organ failure and death). In particular, as cancer cells generate their own ecosystem, displacing and co-opting normal cell function, resulting in systemic host (patient) effects that result in cytokine-mediated lethal syndromes that cause of majority of cancer patient deaths. Citation Format: Kenneth James Pienta, Sarah R. Amend. The patient biosphere: Tumors live in people. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Tumor Metastasis; 2015 Nov 30-Dec 3; Austin, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(7 Suppl):Abstract nr IA27.