Quantitative variations in gene expression: Possible role in cellular diversification and tumor progression

Changes in the quantitative expression of certain genes or in the amounts of their products can quickly stimulate progression to the metastatic phenotype. This has been done experimentally by transferring dominantly acting oncogenes such as c‐H‐ ras EJ into susceptible cells or more recently by interfering with metastasis suppressor genes. In vivo such rapid qualitative changes in dominantly acting oncogenes or suppressor genes occur only rarely, and progression to highly metastatic phenotypes is thought to occur through a process involving the slow stepwise progression of a subpopulation of neoplastic cells to more malignant states. Such slow changes can be reversible and need not involve known dominantly acting oncogenes or metastatic suppressor genes, consistent with clinical and experimental observations on naturally occuring, highly advanced metastatic tumors. An important element in the natural progression of tumors to more malignant states may be their ability to circumvent host environmental controls that regulate growth and cellular diversity. They also evolve into heterogeneous cellular phenotypes, a process that appears to mainly involve quantitative changes in gene expression but can be rapidly stimulated in cell culture by the introduction of a dominantly acting oncogene or inhibited by the introduction of a suppressor gene. The oncogenes and suppressor genes that affect malignancy may control important steps in the quantitative regulation of sets of genes that are ultimately responsible for the cellular alterations seen in adhesion receptors, cell motility responses, cell‐cell communication components, degradative enzymes and their inhibitors, growth factor receptors, components that aid in escape from host surveillance mechanisms and others that are important in malignancy. Highly malignant cells that have slowly evolved in vivo may contain only a few qualitative gene changes but have undergone extensive cycles of diversification and accumulation of quantitative changes in the expression of genes that encode products that are related to malignancy and metastasis. Thus highly malignant cells can arise quickly due to specific qualitative changes in critical controlling genes or more slowly by less critical qualitative genetic changes together with cycles of cellular diversification and accumulation of quantitative changes in gene expression.