Aguadé-Gorgorió Guim, Anderson Alexander R A, Solé Ricard
ISEM, University Montpellier, CNRS, IRD, Montpellier, France.
Integrated Mathematical Oncology Department, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, Tampa, FL, USA.
iScience. 2024 Aug 10;27(9):110699. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.110699. eCollection 2024 Sep 20.
Many cancers resist therapeutic intervention. This is fundamentally related to intratumor heterogeneity: multiple cell populations, each with different phenotypic signatures, coexist within a tumor and its metastases. Like species in an ecosystem, cancer populations are intertwined in a complex network of ecological interactions. Most mathematical models of tumor ecology, however, cannot account for such phenotypic diversity or predict its consequences. Here, we propose that the generalized Lotka-Volterra model (GLV), a standard tool to describe species-rich ecological communities, provides a suitable framework to model the ecology of heterogeneous tumors. We develop a GLV model of tumor growth and discuss how its emerging properties provide a new understanding of the disease. We discuss potential extensions of the model and their application to phenotypic plasticity, cancer-immune interactions, and metastatic growth. Our work outlines a set of questions and a road map for further research in cancer ecology.
许多癌症对治疗干预具有抗性。这从根本上与肿瘤内异质性相关：多个细胞群体，每个群体都具有不同的表型特征，共存于肿瘤及其转移灶中。就像生态系统中的物种一样，癌症群体在复杂的生态相互作用网络中相互交织。然而，大多数肿瘤生态学的数学模型无法解释这种表型多样性或预测其后果。在此，我们提出广义洛特卡 - 沃尔泰拉模型（GLV），一种描述物种丰富的生态群落的标准工具，为模拟异质性肿瘤的生态学提供了一个合适的框架。我们开发了一个肿瘤生长的GLV模型，并讨论其新出现的特性如何为该疾病提供新的理解。我们讨论了该模型的潜在扩展及其在表型可塑性、癌症 - 免疫相互作用和转移生长中的应用。我们的工作概述了一组问题以及癌症生态学进一步研究的路线图。
