Coupling tumor growth and bio distribution models

Abstract

We couple a tumor growth model embedded in a microenvironment, with a bio distribution model able to simulate a whole organ. The growth model yields the evolution of tumor cell population, of the differential pressure between cell populations, of porosity of ECM, of consumption of nutrients due to tumor growth, of angiogenesis, and related growth factors as function of the locally available nutrient. The bio distribution model on the other hand operates on a frozen geometry but yields a much refined distribution of nutrient and other molecules. The combination of both models will enable simulating the growth of a tumor in a whole organ, including a realistic distribution of therapeutic agents and allow hence to evaluate the efficacy of these agents.

Lyapunov stability of competitive cells dynamics in tumor mechanobiology

“…More recently, coupled modelling approaches to characterize the elastic growth of prostate benign hyperplasia provided the influence of a mechanical feedback in the diffusion and the proliferation potential of the solid phase, by additionally including the interaction with chemicals [37,38]. The interactions among tissue constituents has been traced, at the macroscale, by means of multiphase models based on reaction-diffusion equations by accounting for the presence of microstress and macrostress fields [39][40][41][42][43]. At the microscale level, several works suggest the adoption of models analysing the mutual effects in terms of exchanged forces to simulate cell-cell interaction [43][44][45], while tensegritybased single-cell models have been recently used to also furnish a way for biomechanically discriminating among tumor and healthy cells on the basis of the redistribution of internal pre-stretch [17,46].…”

Digital twinning of Cellular Capsule Technology: emerging outcomes from the perspective of porous media mechanics

“…This is an advancement with respect of other numerical studies based on poromechanics which are quite qualitative (e.g. [11] and [17]) or solely connected with a reference experimental setup (e.g. [12]).…”

“…the oxygen consumption rate of EMT6/Ro cell line in [15]). For these parameters, we have taken values that previous numerical studies ( [16], [13], [12], [17] When experimental data did not provide any relevant information on a parameter (e.g. for ECM stiffness and permeability) and the sensitivity of the solution to their variation were insignificant (< 1% of the variance of the solution), we chose to fix them at their generic value.…”

“…the exponent δ it set equal to 2 to account for the tortuosity of cell-cell interstitium where oxygen diffuse ( [19], [20], [23]).…”

“…Some of them have quite a theoretical nature (e.g., the 'permeability' of the ECM) while others have been experimentally measured at the cellular level (e.g., the oxygen consumption rate of EMT6/Ro cell line in [27]). For these parameters, we have taken values that previous numerical studies ( [28], [19], [20], [23]) have used for MCTS cultured with other cell lines (human glioblastoma multiforme and human malignant melanocytes), averaged these values, denoted 'generic', and used them as initial guess for identification of parameters of our CT26 cell line based MCTS.…”