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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Mar 1.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Cancer. 2019 Feb 26;5(3):170–182. doi: 10.1016/j.trecan.2019.02.003

Figure 2. Changes in tumor heterogeneity during tumor progression and treatment.

Figure 2.

Tumor heterogeneity arises due to mutations acquired by daughter cells upon clonal outgrowth of a single founder cell (red) and increases sharply with further development into subclones (different colors reflect different subclones/subpopulations). Some new mutations lead to accelerated growth (for example green and orange subclones). Drug treatment leads to selective survival of a drug resistant clone (orange subclone) and elimination of drug-sensitive subclones (for example green and red subclones) that reduces genetic heterogeneity transiently. Heterogeneity is re-established rapidly through acquisition of mutations by daughter cells of the resistant clone.