Modeling Activation of Oncogenes in the Cell Population of a Tissue Using Evolutionary Game Theory1

Abstract

Activation of oncogenes is one of the most critical factors which results in cancer. In this paper, activation of oncogenes due to the mutation is studied and then the effect of mutant cells on the neighborhood cells is investigated. In order to study the changes in amount of the mutant cells in tissue, at first, we consider the influence of mutation, barely; and the effect of mutant cells on the other cells and compartments around them after a specific time is modeled based on the evolutionary game theory approach. We have used replicator dynamics with onesided mutation to analyze the model. Furthermore, the impact of mutant cells on normal cells is studied by changing the mutation rate of them. Stability of the model are analyzed for different values of the game parameters. Simulation results effectively indicate the impact of mutant cells on enhancing the mutation rate of healthy ones.