Age-structured cell population model to study the influence of growth factors on cell cycle dynamics

Cell proliferation is controlled by many complex regulatory networks. Our purpose is to analyse, through mathematical modeling, the effects of growth factors on the dynamics of the division cycle in cell populations. Our work is based on an age-structured PDE model of the cell division cycle within a population of cells in a common tissue. Cell proliferation is at its first stages exponential and is thus characterised by its growth exponent, the first eigenvalue of the linear system we consider here, a growth exponent that we will explicitly evaluate from biological data. Moreover, this study relies on recent and innovative imaging data (fluorescence microscopy) that make us able to experimentally determine the parameters of the model and to validate numerical results. This model has allowed us to study the degree of simultaneity of phase transitions within a proliferating cell population and to analyse the role of an increased growth factor concentration in this process. This study thus aims at helping biologists to elicit the impact of growth factor concentration on cell cycle regulation, at making more precise the dynamics of key mechanisms controlling the division cycle in proliferating cell populations, and eventually at establishing theoretical bases for optimised combined anticancer treatments.