A Mathematical Model of Hematopoietic Cancer Stem Cell Lineage Population Dynamics

We propose a mutation-generation model of lymphoma, which combines the hierarchy induced by the acquisition of somatic mutations of cells, with the differentiation hierarchy resulting from the potency of stem cells. The results of the model support the hypothesis of the cancer stem cell’s role in the emerging of hematopoietic cancers: a very small fraction of the cancer cell population is responsible for the cancer growth and development. The dynamics of the model is proved using analytic methods and corroborated by computational results based on experimental data.