Ricerc@Sapienza

This paper develops the notion and properties of the generalized principal eigenvalue for an elliptic system coupling an equation in a plane with one on a line in this plane, together with boundary conditions that express exchanges taking place between the plane and the line. This study is motivated by the reaction-diffusion model introduced by Berestycki, Roquejoffre and Rossi [The influence of a line with fast diffusion on Fisher-KPP propagation, J. Math. Biol. 66(4-5) (2013) 743-766] to describe the effect on biological invasions of networks with fast diffusion imbedded in a field.

The basic investigation is the existence and the (numerical) observability of propagating fronts in the framework of the so-called Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition and its reverse Mesenchymal-to-Epithelial Transition, which are known to play a crucial role in tumor development. To this aim, we propose a simplified one-dimensional hyperbolic-parabolic PDE model composed of two equations, one for the representative of the epithelial phenotype, and the second describing the mesenchymal phenotype.