Consequences of cell-to-cell P-glycoprotein transfer on acquired multidrug resistance in breast cancer: a cell population dynamics model

Jennifer Pasquier (1) , Pierre Magal (2) , Céline Boulange-Lecomte (1) , Glenn Webb (3) , Frank Le Foll (4, 1)

1 LEMA - Laboratoire d'Ecotoxicologie - Milieux Aquatiques
2 IMB - Institut de Mathématiques de Bordeaux
3 Vanderbilt University [Nashville]
4 SCALE - Sciences Appliquées à L'Environnement

Background: Cancer is a proliferation disease affecting a genetically unstable cell population, in which molecular alterations can be somatically inherited by genetic, epigenetic or extragenetic transmission processes, leading to a cooperation of neoplastic cells within tumoural tissue. The efflux protein P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is overexpressed in many cancer cells and has known capacity to confer multidrug resistance to cytotoxic therapies. Recently, cell-to-cell P-gp transfers have been shown. Herein, we combine experimental evidence and a mathematical model to examine the consequences of an intercellular P-gp trafficking in the extragenetic transfer of multidrug resistance from resistant to sensitive cell subpopulations.

Keywords: Doxorubicin; Multidrug Resistance; Resistant Cell; Sensitive Cell; Activity Transfer

Domains: Cell Behavior [q-bio.CB]; Subcellular Processes [q-bio.SC]; Cancer; Dynamical Systems [math.DS]

Jennifer Pasquier, Pierre Magal, Céline Boulange-Lecomte, Glenn Webb, Frank Le Foll. Consequences of cell-to-cell P-glycoprotein transfer on acquired multidrug resistance in breast cancer: a cell population dynamics model. Biology Direct, 2011, ⟨10.1186/1745-6150-6-5⟩. ⟨hal-01738512⟩