Cytocapsular cancer evolution analyses of 311 kinds of cancers

Abstract

Cancer is a leading cause of human lethality. Cytocapsular tube, a newly discovered cancer cell specific organelle in vivo, plays pleiotropic biological functions and its generation distinguishes incomplete from complete cancer cells. It is essential for complete malignant tumor growth, cancer metastasis, conventional cancer drug pan-resistance, and cancer relapse. However, mechanisms of cytocapsular cancer evolution are still elusive. Here, we investigated cytocapsular cancer evolution in 311 kinds/subtype of cancers, including 265 types/subtypes of solid cancers and 46 types/subtypes of liquid/hematological cancers. We analyzed 9,856 pieces of annotated clinical tissue samples from 9,682 cancer patients in the asymptotic early stage, Stages I-IV, and before, during and after cancer treatments. We discovered that cytocapsular cancer evolution in solid cancers includes: transformation, formation of incomplete cancer cells, transition to complete cancer cells surrounded by cytocapsulae (CC), merging of complete cancer cells by devolution, formation of cytocapsular tubes (CCTs) and complete malignant tumors in superlarge CC. This is followed by generation of CCT networks, cancer metastasis, CCT network-tumor system (CNTS), CCT degradation and decomposition, and spatiotemporal moving CNTS. In addition, cytocapsular cancer evolution related to liquid (hematological) cancers including bone marrow, thymus, lymph nodes, and spleen, mirrors the process in solid cancers, except that cancer cells in the blood only form CCs but not CCTs. In summary, our study established a cytocapsular cancer evolution atlas, which may pave an avenue for the research on therapy of both solid and liquid cancers.