ArticleFrontiers in immunology2021
Predator-Prey in Tumor-Immune Interactions: A Wrong Model or Just an Incomplete One?
Article in Frontiers in immunology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed.
- When effective anticancer therapies are, in fact, destabilizing the tumor's Group Phenotypic Composition.NPJ precision oncology · 2026Review
- The theory of tumor immuno-ecodynamics.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
- Article
- Gaming the cancer-immunity cycle by synchronizing the dose schedules.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Optimal control of multiple myeloma assuming drug resistance and off-target effects.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Sustainability of a Three-Species Predator-Prey Model in Tumor-Immune Dynamics with Periodic Treatment.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Integration of Immune Cell-Target Cell Conjugate Dynamics Changes the Time Scale of Immune Control of Cancer.Bulletin of mathematical biology · 2025Article
- Article
- Article
- Spatial interactions modulate tumor growth and immune infiltration.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2024Article
- Modeling tumors as complex ecosystems.iScience · 2024Review
- Spatial interactions modulate tumor growth and immune infiltration.Research square · 2024Article
- Spatial interactions modulate tumor growth and immune infiltration.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Onco-Breastomics: An Eco-Evo-Devo Holistic Approach.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Mechanistic characterization of oscillatory patterns in unperturbed tumor growth dynamics: The interplay between cancer cells and components of tumor microenvironment.PLoS computational biology · 2023Article
- Reuniting philosophy and science to advance cancer research.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2023Article
- Modeling the Role of Immune Cell Conversion in the Tumor-Immune Microenvironment.Bulletin of mathematical biology · 2023Article
- Data driven model discovery and interpretation for CAR T-cell killing using sparse identification and latent variables.Frontiers in immunology · 2023Article
- Cellular kinetics: A clinical and computational review of CAR-T cell pharmacology.Advanced drug delivery reviews · 2022Review
- Opportunities for improving brain cancer treatment outcomes through imaging-based mathematical modeling of the delivery of radiotherapy and immunotherapy.Advanced drug delivery reviews · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Tumor-immune interactions are often framed as predator-prey. This imperfect analogy describes how immune cells (the predators) hunt and kill immunogenic tumor cells (the prey). It allows for evaluation of tumor cell populations that change over time during immunoediting and it also considers how the immune system changes in response to these alterations. However, two aspects of predator-prey type models are not typically observed in immuno-oncology. The first concerns the conversion of prey killed into predator biomass. In standard predator-prey models, the predator relies on the prey for nutrients, while in the tumor microenvironment the predator and prey compete for resources (e.g. glucose). The second concerns oscillatory dynamics. Standard predator-prey models can show a perpetual cycling in both prey and predator population sizes, while in oncology we see increases in tumor volume and decreases in infiltrating immune cell populations. Here we discuss the applicability of predator-prey models in the context of cancer immunology and evaluate possible causes for discrepancies. Key processes include "safety in numbers", resource availability, time delays, interference competition, and immunoediting. Finally, we propose a way forward to reconcile differences between model predictions and empirical observations. The immune system is not just predator-prey. Like natural food webs, the immune-tumor community of cell types forms an immune-web of different and identifiable interactions.
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Registered trials
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