title: Darwin's multicellularity: from neurotrophic theories and cell competition to fitness fingerprints.
abstract: Metazoans have evolved ways to engage only the most appropriate cells for long-term tissue development and homeostasis. In many cases, competitive interactions have been shown to guide such cell selection events. In Drosophila, a process termed cell competition eliminates slow proliferating cells from growing epithelia. Recent studies show that cell competition is conserved in mammals with crucial functions like the elimination of suboptimal stem cells from the early embryo and the replacement of old T-cell progenitors in the thymus to prevent tumor formation. Moreover, new data in Drosophila has revealed that fitness indicator proteins, required for cell competition, are also involved in the culling of retinal neurons suggesting that 'fitness fingerprints' may play a general role in cell selection.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cell Biology, IZB, University of Bern, Bern CH-3012, Switzerland. Electronic address: eduardo.moreno@izb.unibe.ch.
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Moreno
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cell Biology, IZB, University of Bern, Bern CH-3012, Switzerland. Electronic address: christa.rhiner@izb.unibe.ch.
authors.forename: Christa
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rhiner
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D002468:Cell Physiological Phenomena; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D004330:Drosophila / Q000166:cytology; D006801:Humans; D008322:Mammals / Q000502:physiology; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology