Table 1 Properties of the four modes of tumour evolution

From: Spatial structure governs the mode of tumour evolution

Evolutionary mode

Role of selection

Definition in terms of summary indices

Tree shape

Associated tumour characteristics

Agreement (%)

Selective sweeps

Strong

D < 10/3 and below I-B curve

Approx. linear

Non-spatial (or little spatial structure)

99 (83)

Progressive diversification

Locally strong

n > 2; D > 20

Highly branched

Gland fission

98 (39)

Branching

Strong but constrained by clonal interference

n > 2; 10/3 < D < 20

Branched

Invasive glandular (budding; infiltration)

94 (62)

Effectively almost neutral

Weak

n < 2 and D above I-B curve

Approx. star-shaped

Boundary growth (or very rapid growth)

99 (85)

  1. I-B, intermediate-branching. Ranges of summary indices refer to true values, and it should be noted that values of D inferred from multi-region sequencing data will typically underestimate these true values. The ‘Agreement’ column contains the percentage of simulated tumours for which n and D values conformed to the mode definition (in the third column) when the model possessed the associated tumour characteristics (in the fifth column). For example, in the first row, we give the percentage of tumours simulated using a non-spatial model that conformed to the definition of the selective sweeps mode. The first percentage corresponds to the four non-neutral cohorts of simulations shown in Fig. 3c (one set of parameter values per model). The second percentage (in parentheses) corresponds to the average of multiple cohorts with varied parameter values, as shown in Extended Data Fig. 5 and Supplementary Figs. 1, 2 and 3. Additional results are given in Supplementary Table 1.
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