Speaker
Description
Glioblastoma cells can form connected networks using tumor microtubes. Recently, it was discovered that through these connections glioblastoma cells can form a cell network which allows propagation of calcium waves. Additionally, there is a rare cell type called “periodic cell” which can sustain consistent intracellular calcium transients and is likely to have KCa3.1 pumps. In this work, we adapt an ordinary differential equation model for intracellular as well as intercellular calcium signaling. We also test three main hypotheses for the mechanism behind the sustained calcium oscillations in periodic cells. We find that all three hypotheses yield similar calcium oscillation patterns resembling the ones seen in the data of Hausmann et al. 2023. We apply our model to small-world, scale-free and random networks and test how communication is inhibited through removal of cells, removal of tumor microtubes, and inhibition of KCa3.1 pumps. All three network types were more vulnerable to random cell damage than to random TM damage. We find that inhibition of KCa3.1 pumps can have a significant impact on the inhibition of network communication, however, to fully degrade the calcium signalling network, all periodic cells must be eradicated confirming experimental observations.
