Their recent study, which appears as the cover article in the May issue of Cancer Research, shows that mathematical models can be used to predict how
different tumor cell populations interact with each other and respond to a changing environment.
Not exact matches
In this mouse model, mutations in Kras and p53 genes resulted in the formation of individual
tumor cell populations that were labeled with
different colors.
Tumors, for example, are known to contain
different populations of
cells, some of which are quite
different to each other in their genetic makeup.
A single
tumor is composed of many
different populations of
cells.
As if that had not been complicated enough already, it has been discovered that even the very same
tumor can harbor multiple
different stem
cell populations in its midst!
A major new insight is the realization that
different tumors of the same type may rely on entirely
different tumor stem
cell populations.
This requires monitoring the
different cell populations that make up the growing
tumor and adjusting the schedule based on the data.