TITLE:
Tumor-Immune Interaction System with the Effect of Time Delay and Hyperglycemia on the Breast Cancer Cells
AUTHORS:
Abeer Hamdan Alblowy, Normah Maan, Nor Aziran Awang
KEYWORDS:
Breast Cancer, Stability, Bifurcation, Time Delay, Nonlinear Dynamical Model, Glucose Risk Factor
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Applied Mathematics and Physics,
Vol.11 No.4,
April
28,
2023
ABSTRACT: Breast cancer in women is a complicated and multifaceted disease. Studies have demonstrated that hyperglycemia is one of the most significant risk factors for breast cancer. Hyperglycemia is when the sugar level in human blood is too high, which means excess glucose. Glucose excess can encourage the growth, invasion, and migration of breast cancer cells at the cellular level. Though, the effects of glucose on the dynamics of breast cancer cells have been examined mathematically by a system of ordinary differential equations. However, the non-instantaneous biological occurrences leading to the secretion of immuno-suppressive cytokines by tumors to evade immune surveillance and the immune cells’ derivation of cytokines to attack the tumor cells are not yet discussed. Therefore, investigating the biological process involved in the dynamics of tumors, immune and normal cells with excessive glucose concentration is inviolable to determining the best procedure for controlling tumors’ uncontrollable growth. Time delay, denoted by τ, is used to describe the time tumor cells take to secrete immunosuppressive cytokines to evade immune surveillance and the time immune cells take to recognize and attack the tumor cells. We have studied the local stability analysis of the biological steady states in both delayed and non-delayed system. The Routh-Hurwitz stability criterion is used to analyze the dynamical equilibrium of the cells’ population. Hopf bifurcation was analyzed by using time delay s as a bifurcation parameter. The analytical results suggest an unstable scenario for a tumor-free equilibrium point as normal cells are bound to grow to their carrying capacity. The result predicts a stable system for coexisting equilibrium when the interaction is instantaneous (τ = 0). However, when τ > 0, the coexisting equilibrium point switches from stable to unstable. The numerical results not only validate all the analytical results but also show the case of possible situations when glucose concentration is varied, indicating that both tumor growth and immune system efficiency are highly affected by the level of glucose in the blood. This concluded that the delay in the secretion of cytokines by immune cells and derivation cytokines by the tumors helps to identify the possible chaotic situation under different glucose concentration and the extent to which such delay can have on restoration of the normal cells when glucose concentration is low.