Multiscale modeling reveals angiogenesis-induced drug resistance in brain tumors and predicts a synergistic drug combination targeting EGFR and VEGFR pathways

BACKGROUND: Experimental studies have demonstrated that both the extracellular vasculature or microenvironment and intracellular molecular network (e.g., epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signaling pathway) are important for brain tumor growth. Additionally, some drugs have been developed to inhibit EGFR signaling pathways. However, how angiogenesis affects the response of tumor cells to drug treatment has rarely been mechanistically studied. Therefore, a multiscale model is required to investigate such complex biological systems that contain interactions and feedback among multiple levels. RESULTS: In this study, we developed a single cell-based multiscale spatiotemporal model to simulate vascular tumor growth and the drug response based on the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) signaling pathway, the EGFR signaling pathway and the cell cycle as well as several microenvironmental factors that determine cell fate switches in a temporal and spatial context. By incorporating the EGFRI treatment effect, the model showed an interesting phenomenon in which the survival rate of tumor cells decreased in the early stage but rebounded in a later stage, revealing the emergence of drug resistance. Moreover, we revealed the critical role of angiogenesis in acquired drug resistance, since inhibiting blood vessel growth using a VEGFR inhibitor prevented the recovery of the survival rate of tumor cells in the later stage. We further investigated the optimal timing of combining VEGFR inhibition with EGFR inhibition and predicted that the drug combination targeting both the EGFR pathway and VEGFR pathway has a synergistic effect. The experimental data validated the prediction of drug synergy, confirming the effectiveness of our model. In addition, the combination of EGFR and VEGFR genes showed clinical relevance in glioma patients. CONCLUSIONS: The developed multiscale model revealed angiogenesis-induced drug resistance mechanisms of brain tumors to EGFRI treatment and predicted a synergistic drug combination targeting both EGFR and VEGFR pathways with optimal combination timing. This study explored the mechanistic and functional mechanisms of the angiogenesis underlying tumor growth and drug resistance, which advances our understanding of novel mechanisms of drug resistance and provides implications for designing more effective cancer therapies. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12859-019-2737-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.