Quantitative Biology

   

The Noise and the Kiss in the Cancer Stem Cells Niche

Authors: Renato Vieira dos Santos, Linaena Méricy da Silva

There is a persistent controversy regarding the frequency of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in solid tumors. Initial studies indicated that these cells had a frequency ranging from 0.0001% to 0.1% of total cells. Recent studies have shown that this does not seem to be always the case. Some of these studies have indicated a frequency of 40%. Through a simple population dynamics model, we studied the effects of stochastic noise and cellular plasticity in the minimal path size of a cancer stem cells population, similar to what is done in what is sometimes called the Kierstead–Skellam–Slobodkin (KISS) Size analysis. We show that the possibility of large variations in the results obtained in the experiments may be a consequence of the different conditions under which the different experiments are submitted, specifically regarding the effective cell niche size where stem cells are transplanted. We also show the possibility of a noise induced transition where the stationary probability distribution of the CSC population can present bimodality.

Comments: 9 Pages.

Download: PDF

Submission history

[v1] 2013-07-18 07:58:19

Unique-IP document downloads: 54 times

Vixra.org is a pre-print repository rather than a journal. Articles hosted may not yet have been verified by peer-review and should be treated as preliminary. In particular, anything that appears to include financial or legal advice or proposed medical treatments should be treated with due caution. Vixra.org will not be responsible for any consequences of actions that result from any form of use of any documents on this website.

Add your own feedback and questions here:
You are equally welcome to be positive or negative about any paper but please be polite. If you are being critical you must mention at least one specific error, otherwise your comment will be deleted as unhelpful.

comments powered by Disqus