Project 1: How tumor ensemble models with two experimental models predict tumor dormancy & reactivation in cancers with gender and/or ethnic disparities

癌症是世界上主要的健康问题之一。化疗或手术后，一些癌症，例如， 乳腺癌和黑色素瘤，通过一种仍然神秘的机制，在多年前一直存在，显然处于休眠状态， 出现远处转移，肿瘤重新激活并生长。潜伏的肿瘤细胞可以通过它们的微环境存活， 部分排除了攻击它们的T细胞。移植研究表明， 静止期，这些细胞和免疫系统处于动态平衡和细胞分裂的周期性爆发中 和消除有时会改变不可观察的微转移，这些微转移聚集在遗传、表观遗传和 蛋白质组学变化转化为大转移。缺乏细节和完整的机制。 有一个实验或理论模型，概括潜伏期或其重新激活的缺乏。一 小鼠乳腺癌模型表现出短期潜伏期和复发。数学癌症模型通常 描述单个肿瘤生长和/或转移生成或几种突变的概率，但不描述 神秘。本文提出了一个新的大系综动力学的数学种群模型（从一个或多个系综出发， 许多患者）经历有丝分裂、细胞死亡（免疫、化疗或免疫疗法、坏死、坏死或坏死）的所有大小的肿瘤。 姐妹等）和转移。集合体自然地包含相似肿瘤的响应变化。预测 是概率性的，与每个尺寸的预期肿瘤数量和来自任何初始尺寸分布的时间成比例， 是的。较小的肿瘤往往比较大的肿瘤对化疗反应更好，这可能是由于后者的活性更高。 累积的突变;肿瘤大小依赖性参数最简单地对此进行建模。我们的模型发现了一个令人惊讶的 这些大小依赖的过程之间的相互作用，在一个合奏，产生有趣的新的意想不到的 定性行为，例如，扩散在肿瘤大小的空间，首次预测休眠和复发。 该建议将该新的数学模型与BALB/c小鼠乳腺癌密切结合， 清晰、无条纹的斑马鱼黑色素瘤系统;两者都允许对肿瘤数量进行实时非侵入性监测 和大小与时间的关系。我们的模型适合现有的人类肝细胞癌和免疫缺陷病毒。 免疫抑制和主管鱼类黑色素瘤直方图在许多时候非常好，只有3个参数- 特斯我们计划进行新的鱼类实验，以控制/调整免疫水平，从而获取和测试参数 预测产量休眠和复发。我们将对小鼠乳腺癌进行详细的实验 系统，它可能会表现出自然的休眠和复发，并使用它来测试我们的模型。我们还将尝试 调节其免疫力的访问和测试参数预测产量休眠和复发。由于两 这些癌症表现出种族和性别差异，我们将使用具有概括的SNP的黑色素瘤细胞， 种族特异性遗传学和按性别分离（鱼类）数据，以查看参数是否显示种族和/或 性别特异性;这将延续到休眠和复发。如果时间和资金允许，我们还将 开始研究肿瘤形状对其参数的肿瘤大小依赖性的影响。

Cancer is one of the world's major health problems. After chemotherapy or surgery, some cancers, e.g., breast cancer and melanoma, by a still mysterious mechanism persist, apparently dormant, for years before distant metastases appear and tumors reactivate and grow. Latent tumor cells may survive by their microenvi- ronment partially excluding T-cells that would attack them. Transplant studies indicate that, rather than static quiescence, these cells and the immune system are in dynamic equilibrium and periodic bursts of cell division and elimination sometimes transform unobservable micrometastases that accumulate genetic, epigenetic and proteomic changes into macrometastases. Details and a complete mechanism are lacking. There is a paucity of experimental or theoretical models that recapitulate latency or its reactivation. One mouse breast cancer model exhibits short-term latency & recurrence. Mathematical cancer models typically describe single tumor growth and/or metastasis generation or the probability of several mutations, but not dor- mancy. We posit a new mathematical population model for the dynamics of a large ensemble (from one or many patients) of tumors of all sizes subject to mitosis, cell death (immunity, chemo or immunotherapy, necro- sis, etc.) and metastasis. Ensembles naturally incorporate response variations of similar tumors. Predictions are probabilistic, proportional to the expected tumor number of each size and time from any initial size distribu- tion. Smaller tumors often respond better to chemotherapy than larger ones, likely due to the latter's more ac- cumulated mutations; tumor-size-dependent parameters model this most simply. Our model finds a surprising interaction among these size-dependent processes in an ensemble that generates intriguing new unexpected qualitative behavior, e.g., diffusion in tumor size space that for the first time predicts dormancy & recurrence. This proposal intimately integrates this new mathematical model with the BALB/c murine breast cancer and the clear, stripeless zebrafish melanoma systems; both allow live non-invasive monitoring of tumor numbers and sizes vs time without animal sacrifice. Our model fits existing human hepatocellular carcinoma and im- mune-suppressed & competent fish melanoma histograms at many times extremely well with only 3 parame- ters. We plan new fish experiments to control/tune the level of immunity so as to access and test parameters predicted to yield dormancy & recurrence. We shall carry out detailed experiments on the mouse breast cancer system, which may exhibit dormancy & recurrence naturally, and use it to test our model. We shall also attempt to modulate its immunity to access and test parameters predicted to yield dormancy & recurrence. Since both these cancers show both ethnic and gender disparities, we shall use melanoma cell with snps that recapitulate ethnicity-specific genetics and segregate (fish) data by gender so as to see if parameters show ethnic and/or gender specificity; this would carry over to dormancy & recurrence. Time and funds permitting, we shall also begin to look at the effect of tumor shape on its parameters' tumor size dependences.