Cancer is a complex disease that starts with mutations of key genes in one cell or a small group of cells at a primary site in the body. If these cancer cells continue to grow successfully and, at some later stage, invade the surrounding tissue and acquire a vascular network, they can spread to distant secondary sites in the body. This process, known as metastatic spread, is responsible for around 90% of deaths from cancer and is one of the so-called hallmarks of cancer. To shed light on the metastatic process, we present a mathematical modelling framework that captures for the first time the interconnected processes of invasion and metastatic spread of individual cancer cells in a spatially explicit manner—a multigrid, hybrid, individual-based approach. This framework accounts for the spatiotemporal evolution of mesenchymal- and epithelial-like cancer cells, membrane-type-1 matrix metalloproteinase (MT1-MMP) and the diffusible matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2), and for their interactions with the extracellular matrix. Using computational simulations, we demonstrate that our model captures all the key steps of the invasion-metastasis cascade, i.e. invasion by both heterogeneous cancer cell clusters and by single mesenchymal-like cancer cells; intravasation of these clusters and single cells both via active mechanisms mediated by matrix-degrading enzymes (MDEs) and via passive shedding; circulation of cancer cell clusters and single cancer cells in the vasculature with the associated risk of cell death and disaggregation of clusters; extravasation of clusters and single cells; and metastatic growth at distant secondary sites in the body. By faithfully reproducing experimental results, our simulations support the evidence-based hypothesis that the membrane-bound MT1-MMP is the main driver of invasive spread rather than diffusible MDEs such as MMP-2.
A Mathematical Framework for Modelling the Metastatic Spread of Cancer / Franssen, L. C.; Lorenzi, T.; Burgess, A. E. F.; Chaplain, M. A. J.. - In: BULLETIN OF MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY. - ISSN 0092-8240. - 81:6(2019), pp. 1965-2010-2010.
Titolo: | A Mathematical Framework for Modelling the Metastatic Spread of Cancer | |
Autori: | ||
Data di pubblicazione: | 2019 | |
Rivista: | ||
Digital Object Identifier (DOI): | http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11538-019-00597-x | |
Appare nelle tipologie: | 1.1 Articolo in rivista |
File in questo prodotto:
File | Descrizione | Tipologia | Licenza | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Franssen2019_Article_AMathematicalFrameworkForModel.pdf | articolo principale | 2a Post-print versione editoriale / Version of Record | ![]() | Visibile a tuttiVisualizza/Apri |
http://hdl.handle.net/11583/2870796