Mathematical modeling of multicellular tumor spheroids quantifies inter-patient and intra-tumor heterogeneity
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: In the study of brain tumors, patient-derived three-dimensional sphere cultures provide an important tool for studying emerging treatments. The growth of such spheroids depends on the combined effects of proliferation and migration of cells, but it is challenging to make accurate distinctions between increase in cell number versus the radial movement of cells. To address this, we formulate a novel model in the form of a system of two partial differential equations (PDEs) incorporating both migration and growth terms, and show that it more accurately fits our data compared to simpler PDE models. We show that traveling-wave speeds are strongly associated with population heterogeneity. Having fitted the model to our dataset we show that a subset of the cell lines are best described by a “Go-or-Grow”-type model, which constitutes a special case of our model. Finally, we investigate whether our fitted model parameters are correlated with patient age and survival.
Language: English
Subfield: Modeling and Simulation
Field: Mathematics
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,490
Awards: MRI: Acquisition of Hardware for the Enhancement of the ELSA High Performance Computing Cluster to Enable Computational Research at The College of New Jersey, CC* Networking Infrastructure: Building a Friction-free High-speed Science Network and DMZ to Support Data-intensive Research and Education at The College of New Jersey, Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)
OpenAlex ID: W4407592477