Mathematical Models of Cancer Cell Plasticity

Figure 1

The tumour microenvironment (TME) promotes cancer cell plasticity because of the effect of ECM stiffness, acidity, hypoxia, and the presence of immune cells in TME. Cancer cells can survive in TME through epigenetic changes and also escape to more favourable environments. To escape from stress within the TME, cancer cells use individual or collective cell migration mechanisms. Two individual cell migration methods are amoeboid and mesenchymal migration. Cancer cells can migrate from the TME by collective cell migration mechanisms, in cluster or multicellular sheets.