Analysis of the fluctuations of the tumour/host interface

作者：Milotti Edoardo; Vyshemirsky Vladislav; Stella Sabrina^*; Dogo Federico; Chignola Roberto

来源：Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications , 2017, 486: 587-594.

DOI：10.1016/j.physa.2017.06.005

• Fluctuations in biological systems
• Scaling laws
• Lognormal distribution
• Cancer metabolism
• Cancer growth

In a recent analysis of metabolic scaling in solid tumours we found a scaling law that interpolates between the power laws mu alpha V and mu alpha V-2/3, where mu is the metabolic rate expressed as the glucose absorption rate and V is the tumour volume. The scaling law fits quite well both in vitro and in vivo data, however we also observed marked fluctuations that are associated with the specific biological properties of individual tumours. Here we analyse these fluctuations, in an attempt to find the population-wide distribution of an important parameter (A) which expresses the total extent of the interface between the solid tumour and the non-cancerous environment. Heuristic considerations suggest that the values of the A parameter follow a lognormal distribution, and, allowing for the large uncertainties of the experimental data, our statistical analysis confirms this.

• 出版日期2017-11-15