Ecological dynamics of pro-tumor and anti-tumor teams in the tumor microenvironment

Abstract

Tumor growth occurs within a complex tumor microenvironment (TME) composed of many interacting cell types. However, the signs of tumor-immune interactions in this ecosystem are not random and possess a structure, the immune cell types in the TME tend to organize into two functional communities: a pro-tumor team and an anti-tumor team, each internally cooperative but mutually antagonistic, forming a two-team ecosystem. Quantitatively predicting the ecological outcomes of such interactions remains challenging due to cellular diversity and interaction variability, and the exact dynamical regimes accessible to such a two-team ecosystem remain unknown. Here, we model tumor-immune interactions as a structured ecosystem with two competing teams using a generalized Lotka–Volterra framework and analyze it using the cavity method. We derive phase diagrams that delineate when these two communities coexist, when one dominates, and how these outcomes depend on intra-team cooperation, cross-team inhibition, and ecological heterogeneity. Our work provides a foundation for understanding tumor-immune dynamics from a community ecology perspective.