On a mathematical model of tumor-immune system interactions with an oncolytic virus therapy

Abstract

We investigate a mathematical model of tumor–immune system interactions with oncolytic virus therapy (OVT). Susceptible tumor cells may become infected by viruses that are engineered specifically to kill cancer cells but not healthy cells. Once the infected cancer cells are destroyed by oncolysis, they release new infectious virus particles to help kill surrounding tumor cells. The immune system constructed includes innate and adaptive immunities while the adaptive immunity is further separated into anti-viral or anti-tumor immune cells. The model is first analyzed by studying boundary equilibria and their stability. Numerical bifurcation analysis is performed to investigate the outcomes of the oncolytic virus therapy. The model has a unique tumor remission equilibrium, which is unlikely to be stable based on the parameter values given in the literature. Multiple stable positive equilibria with tumor sizes close to the carrying capacity coexist in the system if the tumor is less antigenic. However, as the viral infection rate increases, the OVT becomes more effective in the sense that the tumor can be dormant for a longer period of time even when the tumor is weakly antigenic.