A gene expression-based mathematical modeling approach for breast cancer tumor growth and shrinkage

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a personalized parameterization approach, namely prep-g, to explore impact of gene expression values from breast cancer patients on tumor growth and shrinkage characteristics using xenograft models. In construction of prep-g parameterization, in addition to individual effects of the breast cancer-related gene expressions, the impact of the correlation among them and the contribution of their multiple orders are considered. Tumor growth behavior, and delay and shrinkage effects of anti-cancer agents are examined in six case studies using xenograft models implanted with breast cancer cell lines. Tumor growth parameters for er+ cell lines bt-474 and mcf-7, and drug-related shrinkage parameters for cell lines mda-mb-231, mda-mb-468 and bt-474 under the monotherapy of drugs paclitaxel and doxorubicin are computed. Consistency of the experimental data reported in several studies in literature for multiple breast cancer cell lines in mice models and the computed results from prep-g are encouraging, which indicates that construction of mathematical models for tumor growth and shrinkage by combining gene expressions and clinical information may be feasible.