tugHall: a simulator of cancer-cell evolution based on the hallmarks of cancer and tumor-related genes

Bioinformatics. 2020 Jun 1;36(11):3597-3599. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa182.

Abstract

Summary: The flood of recent cancer genomic data requires a coherent model that can sort out the findings to systematically explain clonal evolution and the resultant intra-tumor heterogeneity (ITH). Here, we present a new mathematical model designed to computationally simulate the evolution of cancer cells. The model connects the well-known hallmarks of cancer with the specific mutational states of tumor-related genes. The cell behavior phenotypes are stochastically determined, and the hallmarks probabilistically interfere with the phenotypic probabilities. In turn, the hallmark variables depend on the mutational states of tumor-related genes. Thus, our software can deepen our understanding of cancer-cell evolution and generation of ITH.

Availability and implementation: The open-source code is available in the repository https://github.com/nagornovys/Cancer_cell_evolution.

Contact: [email protected].

Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Clonal Evolution
  • Genes, Neoplasm
  • Genomics
  • Humans
  • Neoplasms* / genetics
  • Software*