Revealing the Origin and Nature of Drug Resistance of Dynamic Tumour Systems

In this paper, the authors identify the strategies that resistant subpopulations of cancer cells undertake to overcome the effect of the anticancer drug Topotecan. For the analyses of cell lineage data encoded from timelapse microscopy, data mining tools are chosen that generate interpretable models of the data, addressing their statistical significance. By interpreting the short-term and long-term cytotoxic effect of Topotecan through these data models, the authors reveal the strategies that resistant subpopulations of cells undertake to maximize their clonal expansion potential. In this context, this paper identifies a pattern of cell death independent of cytotoxic effect. Finally, it is observed that cells exposed to Topotecan have higher movement over time, indicating a putative relationship between cytotoxic effect and cell motility.