Single-cell tumour phylogenetics.

Single-cell tumour phylogenetics is advancing by reconstructing tumour evolutionary histories as phylogenetic trees from single-cell sequencing, addressing modelling challenges beyond classical approaches.

• Why it matters: Tumour evolution and single-cell sequencing introduce new data and process complexities that classical phylogenetic and phylodynamic methods do not address, limiting accurate inference.
• What they did: This review summarizes bespoke single-cell tumour phylogeny models and assumptions and highlights recent computational and algorithmic advances for phylogenetic inference from single-cell sequencing data.
• The result: The field’s advances are linked to new insights into individual cancers and cohorts of patient samples, while ongoing challenges and future applications are outlined.