白血病中的Allee效应

Allee效应是生态学表述种群大小或密度与生存繁衍关系的个体适度性状,与医学生物学中群体生存的浓度或密度依赖概念一致.近年来理论生物学对Allee效应进行了系统的分析研究,并应用于肿瘤生物学研究.白血病细胞以机体为生存环境,表现出显著的Allee效应.作者根据多年实验工作和文献资料对白血病细胞的浓度依赖性与Allee效应进行比较,发现二者并无原则性的区别.文章用生态学的观点初步探讨了体外培养细胞的Allee效应,白血病尤其是微小残留白血病的Allee效应,以及Allee效应与白血病发病机制和复发动力学的关系,并展望了今后的发展方向.

Allee effect in leukemia

Allee effect is a phenomenon in ecology characterized by a correlation between population size or density and the mean individual fitness of population or species.It is consistent with density dependent phenomenon in biomedical field.Recently,Allee effect has been studied by theoretical biologist in detail for oncology biological research.Leukemia cells,which reside in organic microenvironment,show an obvious Allee effect.The authors compared Allee effect with density dependent growth of leukemia cells based on their work experience and literature data.No principle distinction was found between these two terms.In this paper,Allee effect in leukemia cell culture and leukemia,especially in minimal residual disease,will be discussed in the view of ecology.The association between Allee effect and leukemogenesis and relapse dynamics will also be explored in the future research.