Fig. 2

Overview of the mathematical model. a Model structure: The model includes one hematopoietic cell line and an arbitrary number of leukemic clones. Leukemic and healthy cells interact by feedback signals. Due to mutations new clones with different properties arise. Mutation rates of leukemic and healthy cells are denoted as ν and γ resp. b Example simulation: The panel shows the time course of mitotic leukemic cells. The horizontal axis shows the time since appearance of the first leukemic cell. The simulation ends when the mature healthy cell count is below 5 % of its steady state value. This corresponds to the death of the patient. Each color represents one clone