Research News

Three-In-One Model Simulates Brain Tumor Progression

Given the complexity of cancer, it should come as no surprise that researchers have developed many different types of mathematical models that can successfully represent certain aspects of tumor development, for example. Some models can provide insights into the thousands of interactions between many different cells in a tumor, while other models look at groups of cells and their interactions with signals arising from outside the tumor. Each model has its strengths and limitations. For example, cell-based models are the most powerful in terms of understanding the early stages of malignancy, but they are so complex that they are limited to modeling tumors far smaller than any that are clinically relevant.

Now, Ishwar Puri of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and colleagues have successfully combined three different types of models to produce a hybrid computational model that simulates glioma growth and metastasis. The merger of the three different models enabled the investigators to examine the behavior of large collections of cells and their interactions with one another, while doing so for a tumor that grows to 6 centimeters in diameter, a clinically relevant size. The researchers note in their paper, which was published in the journal Cell Proliferation, that their ultimate goal is to use larger-scale models to represent the tumor body and cell-based modeling components to represent the cells on the edges of the tumor.

The model starts with one glioma cell and allows it to start dividing. As the number of cells increase, some begin to migrate and form the hairlike projections characteristic of human gliomas. As the tumor continues to grow, migratory cells continue to arise, primarily from transformation of glioma cells into migratory cells rather than through cell division. Another important finding was that tumor growth is heavily influenced by the depth to which nutrients can penetrate the tumor. These results imply that increasing the rate at which anticancer agents diffuse into the tumor or boosting the concentration of therapeutic agents around the tumor should increase the depth of penetration and the resulting therapeutic effect.

This work is detailed in a paper titled, “Hybrid mathematical model of glioma progression.” An abstract of this paper is available at the journal's Web site.
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