Fig. 4: Genes expressed in normal tissue but not in the cancers arising from that tissue.
From: Parallel and convergent dynamics in the evolution of primary breast and lung adenocarcinomas
Early evolutionary selection will decrease differentiated function that benefits the host. The associated molecular machinery incurs a cost to the nascent, evolving cancer cell but typically provides no fitness benefit. The involved genes are highly tissue-specific and show minimum overlap. See Supplemental Figs. 12 and 13.
