Click the image below to view the animated version of this cover.


Created by: Maya Lewinsohn

Issue 224: In our recent paper, we explored patterns of tumor trees under spatial growth constraints. This artwork highlights the interlinked nature of cell division and genetic divergence observed in simulated tumors. Under boundary-driven growth, cells on the periphery of a tumor divide rapidly (yellow cells), whereas cell lineages trapped in the center are stunted (teal cells). We can see these dynamics play out simultaneously in the genetic tree. Yellow lineages also “grow” higher than teal ones, representing a higher accumulation of mutations. Animated frames were created from simulated tumor data with R and ggtree — the scripts can be found here.