%0 Journal Article %A Ricard Solé %A Guim Aguadé-Gorgorió %T The ecology of cancer differentiation therapy I: non-spatial models %D 2019 %R 10.1101/853002 %J bioRxiv %P 853002 %X A promising, yet still under development a roach to cancer treatment is based on the idea of differentiation therapy (DTH). Most tumours are characterised by poorly differentiated cell populations exhibiting a marked loss of traits associated to communication and tissue homeostasis. DTH has been suggested as an alternative (or complement) to cytotoxic-based a roaches, and has proven successful in some specific types of cancer such as acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). While novel drugs favouring the activation of differentiation therapies are being tested, several open problems emerge in relation to its efectiveness on solid tumors. Here we present a mathematical a roach to DTH based on a well-known ecological model used to describe habitat loss in a logistic-growing population experiencing death. This model seems to account for some of the observed clinical and in vitro outcomes of DTH while it provides relevant insight into potential treatment scenarios. Furthermore, the same ecological a roach is tested in a hierarchical model that accounts for cancer stem cells, proving that DTH might be an effective o ortunity to tackle all the self-renewing cellular compartments in a tumor. We show that the lessons learnt from metapopulation ecology can help guide future developments and potential difficulties of DTH. %U https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/11/24/853002.full.pdf