Shaon Chakrabarti

Loading metrics Open Access Peer-reviewed Research Article ? This is an uncorrected proof. Citation: Iyer A, Alva A, Granada AE, Chakrabarti S (2025) Inheritable cell-states shape drug-persister correlations and population dynamics in cancer cells. PLoS Comput Biol 21(9): e1013446. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013446 Editor: John P.

Abstract Genes with expression levels that fluctuate on time scales longer than cell division times are associated with cancer drug tolerance. However, current methods for identifying such memory genes rely on variants of the Luria-Delbruck experiment and require either multiple replicates or lineage information, limiting their use to model systems or in-vitro settings.

Identifying the general principles governing when non-genetic heterogeneity is biologically relevant has been challenging. By studying correlations of cell fate across single-cell lineages and using barcoding techniques, a widely applicable principle of drug tolerance in cancer has emerged: persister cells probably originate from non-genetic cellular states that exist prior to drug treatment.