Stability Analysis of a Model of Interaction Between the Immune System and Cancer Cells in Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia

International audienceWe describe here a simple model for the interaction between leukemic cells and the autologous immune response in chronic phase chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). This model is a simplified version of the model we proposed in [Clapp et al., Cancer Research, 75:4053-4062, 2015]. Our simplification is based on the observation that certain key characteristics of the dynamics of CML can be captured with a three compartments model: two for the leukemic cells (stem cells and mature cells) and one for the immune response. We characterize the existence of steady states and their stability for generic forms of immunosuppres-sive effects of leukemic cells. We provide a complete co-dimension one bifurcation analysis. Our results show how clinical response to tyrosine kinase inhibitors treatment is compatible with the existence of a stable low-disease, treatment-free steady state