Uncovering the underlying mechanism of cancer tumorigenesis and development under an immune microenvironment from global quantification of the landscape

Abstract

The study of the cancer–immune system is important for understanding tumorigenesis and the development of cancer and immunotherapy. In this work, we build a comprehensive cancer–immune model including both cells and cytokines to uncover the underlying mechanism of cancer immunity based on landscape topography. We quantify three steady-state attractors, normal state, low cancer state and high cancer state, for the innate immunity and adaptive immunity of cancer. We also illustrate the cardinal inhibiting cancer immunity interactions and promoting cancer immunity interactions through global sensitivity analysis. We simulate tumorigenesis and the development of cancer and classify these into six stages. The characteristics of the six stages can be classified further into three groups. These correspond to the escape, elimination and equilibrium phases in immunoediting, respectively. Under specific cell–cell interactions strength oscillations emerge. We found that tumorigenesis and cancer recovery processes may need to go through cancer–immune oscillation, which consumes more energy. Based on the cancer–immune landscape, we predict three types of cells and two types of cytokines for cancer immunotherapy as well as combination immunotherapy. This landscape framework provides a quantitative way to understand the underlying mechanisms of the interplay between cancer and the immune system for cancer tumorigenesis and development.