Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences· 2026Q1
Modeling a continuum of drug-induced persistence during targeted cancer therapy
- 3citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
A new framework models how cancer cells develop drug persistence, a state of survival that can precede true resistance, by adapting phenotypically to targeted therapies.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Introduces a general phenomenological framework for understanding drug persisters in targeted cancer therapy.
- Models how phenotypic plasticity enables cancer cells to survive drug treatment.
- Accounts for single-cell variations and the drug's potential role in enhancing survival.
- Predicts an optimal drug concentration and drug holiday schedule to minimize persistence.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
We introduce a general phenomenological framework for understanding how phenotypic plasticity gives rise to drug persisters. These persisters, often quiescent but which sometimes return to cycling, survive in the presence of targeted therapy and eventually can lead to mutants with true resistance. Our framework builds on recent experimental observations regarding variations between and among single-cell clones and the possible role of the drug itself in enhancing the survival strategy. Predictions of our approach include the existence of an optimum drug concentration as well as an optimum drug holiday schedule to minimize the persistence-based threat.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Modeling and Simulation
Modeling and SimulationMathematics