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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Jan 1.
Published in final edited form as: Biochim Biophys Acta. 2009 Nov 18;1805(1):105. doi: 10.1016/j.bbcan.2009.11.002

Fig. 1. Schematic view of monoclonal and multiclonal models of tumor progression.

Fig. 1

Increasing color intensity correlates with tumor progression, whereas different colors reflect different clones. A: Traditional, linear model of clonal succession, where progressive mutations in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes drive linear succession of rounds of clonal expansion, manifested as tumor progression. B: Multi-clonal model of tumor progression: although all cells in tumors originate from a single initiated cell, the evolution of the tumor is more “messy”, with genetically divergent tumor clones co-existing within tumors for substantial periods of time. The population sizes and characteristics of clones change as tumors evolve, with some clone populations expanding in size and others remaining unchanged or becoming extinct. In advanced stages of tumor evolution, tumors might become dominated by single clones.