Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Cancers necessarily rely on the (embryologic) fundamental growth patterning genes to serve their uncontrolled growth. Studying a cancer’s behavior, depending on which side of an embryological divide it derives, together with its transcriptome and its relationship to immigrant cells with stem cell potential, intercellular signaling and transducer cascades to transcription factors—all help our understanding of the cancer phenotype. To these can be added the acquired methylome and possibly a “knock-on” metabolome. These aspects are reviewed in the context of Haeckel’s law.
