Limiting Tumor Initiation What is the competitive advantage of cells with frequently occurring mutations during tumor development? Vermeulen et al. (p. 995 ; see the Perspective by Bozic and Nowak ) quantified the advantages of Apc -loss, Kras activation, and P53 mutation during tumor initiation in the mouse intestine. The mutations conferred only a limited clonal advantage. Indeed, many mutated stem cells were stochastically replaced by wild-type stem cells, helping to limit tumor initiation.

Defining Stem Cell Dynamics in Models of Intestinal Tumor Initiation