Cancer cell lines show high heritability for motility but not generation time

Tumour evolution depends on heritable differences between cells in traits affecting cell survival or replication. It is well-established that cancer cells are genetically and phenotypically heterogeneous; however, the extent to which this phenotypic variation is heritable is far less well-explored. Here we estimate the broad-sense heritability (H2) of two cell traits related to cancer hallmarks - cell motility and generation time - within populations of four cancer cell lines in vitro, and find that motility is strongly heritable. This heritability is stable across multiple cell generations, with heritability values at the high end of those measured for a range of traits in natural populations of animals or plants. These findings confirm a central assumption of cancer evolution, provide a first quantification of the evolvability of key traits in cancer cells, and indicate that there is ample raw material for experimental evolution in cancer cell lines. Generation time, a trait directly...肿瘤演化取决于细胞间影响细胞存活或增殖的性状的可遗传差异。已有充分研究证实，癌细胞在遗传与表型层面均存在异质性；然而，此类表型变异的可遗传程度却尚未得到充分探究。本研究针对体外培养的4株癌细胞系群体，估算了与癌症特征标志相关的两类细胞性状——细胞运动能力与增殖周期的广义遗传力（broad-sense heritability, H²），并发现细胞运动能力具有较强的可遗传性。该可遗传性在多代细胞增殖过程中保持稳定，其遗传力数值处于动植物自然群体中各类已测定性状的遗传力上限区间。本研究结果不仅验证了肿瘤演化的核心假设，首次量化了癌细胞关键性状的演化潜能，同时表明癌细胞系具备开展实验演化研究的充足原始材料。增殖周期作为一类直接相关的性状……