What Can Ecology Teach Us About Cancer?

In 2008, Pienta et al. (Transl Oncol. 2008;1:158-164) introduced the term ecological therapy for cancer treatment and, in particular, emphasized that destruction of the tumor microenvironment would be more effective than just killing the cells that inhabit it. Proposed here is an expansion on the idea of ecological therapy of cancer, incorporating 1) literature on species invasion, i.e., a right cancerous clone needs to be at the right place at the right time to actually invade its environment, and 2) the literature on niche construction, that is, the idea that once a tumor is formed, cancer cells they modify their microenvironment (niche construction) by changing pH through glycolysis, secreting growth factors and recruiting tumor-associated macrophages to promote cell growth, activating fibroblasts, evading predation from immune system, making the cancer that much more difficult to eradicate. Paleontological literature suggests that the largest mass extinctions occurred when environmental stress that would weaken the population was coupled with some pulse destructive event that caused extensive mortality. To have the same effect on cells in the tumor, rather than, or at least in addition to, killing the cells, one would also need to target the niche that they created for themselves.