目前癌症生物学的教条认为，癌症是一个身份问题：细胞 DNA 的突变导致它“失控”并增殖失控。然而，这在很大程度上忽略了细胞与细胞相互作用的作用，并且无法解释诸如癌症逆转、表观遗传癌症的存在和异物致癌等现象。在这篇概念验证论文中，我们利用犯罪学提出，癌症也可以被概念化为一个相关问题：尽管细胞的遗传学至关重要，但其与其他细胞相互作用的影响在确定其表型时同样重要。我们创建了一个简单的基于代理的正常细胞和癌细胞之间相互作用的网络模型来证明这一想法。我们发现细胞间的高突变率和低水平的连接都可以促进肿瘤发生。将癌症视为组织中细胞间通讯网络的崩溃，很好地补充了以基因为中心的范式，并为理解和治疗癌症提供了新的视角。版权所有 © 2024。由 Elsevier B.V. 出版。

The current dogma in cancer biology contends that cancer is an identity problem: mutations in a cell's DNA cause it to "go rogue" and proliferate out of control. However, this largely ignores the role of cell-cell interaction and fails to explain phenomena such as cancer reversion, the existence of epigenetic cancers, and foreign-body carcinogenesis. In this proof-of-concept paper, we draw on criminology to propose that cancer may alternatively be conceptualized as a relational problem: Although a cell's genetics is essential, the influence of its interaction with other cells is equally important in determining its phenotype. We create a simple agent-based network model of interactions among normal and cancer cells to demonstrate this idea. We find that both high mutation rates and low levels of connectivity among cells can promote oncogenesis. Viewing cancer as a breakdown in communication networks among cells in a tissue complements the gene-centric paradigm nicely and provides a novel perspective for understanding and treating cancer.Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.