生态相互作用在细胞尺度上是基础，解决了使用生态学语言和原理描述细胞系统的可能性。在这项工作中，我们使用涵盖细胞群生长、适应和生存的最小生态方法来模拟能量约束下的细胞代谢和竞争。作为概念验证，我们应用这个通用公式来研究一种称为多发性骨髓瘤的特定血癌的发病动态。我们证明，描述拮抗细胞群竞争有限资源的最小模型，在微环境因素和内部细胞结构的调节下，再现了由于骨髓内癌性浆细胞不受控制的增殖而导致的多发性骨髓瘤进化模式。该模型的特点是选择性有利的恶性浆细胞发生一类向更耗散状态的转变，反映了骨髓自我调节的崩溃。从模拟中获得的过渡时间从几年到几十年不等，与患者生存时间的临床观察一致。这种不可逆的动态行为代表了对骨髓瘤无法治愈的性质的可能描述，其基于浆细胞和微环境之间的生态相互作用，嵌入在一个更大的复杂系统中。使用 ATP 等效能量单位定义库存和流量是构建生态模型的关键，该模型将骨髓瘤的发作再现为反映浆细胞能量的系统状态之间的转变。这项工作为构建代表骨髓瘤的更复杂模型提供了基础，可以与模型生态系统进行比较。版权所有：© 2023 Conte 等人。这是一篇根据知识共享署名许可条款分发的开放获取文章，允许在任何媒体上不受限制地使用、分发和复制，前提是注明原始作者和来源。

Ecological interactions are fundamental at the cellular scale, addressing the possibility of a description of cellular systems that uses language and principles of ecology. In this work, we use a minimal ecological approach that encompasses growth, adaptation and survival of cell populations to model cell metabolisms and competition under energetic constraints. As a proof-of-concept, we apply this general formulation to study the dynamics of the onset of a specific blood cancer-called Multiple Myeloma. We show that a minimal model describing antagonist cell populations competing for limited resources, as regulated by microenvironmental factors and internal cellular structures, reproduces patterns of Multiple Myeloma evolution, due to the uncontrolled proliferation of cancerous plasma cells within the bone marrow. The model is characterized by a class of regime shifts to more dissipative states for selectively advantaged malignant plasma cells, reflecting a breakdown of self-regulation in the bone marrow. The transition times obtained from the simulations range from years to decades consistently with clinical observations of survival times of patients. This irreversible dynamical behavior represents a possible description of the incurable nature of myelomas based on the ecological interactions between plasma cells and the microenvironment, embedded in a larger complex system. The use of ATP equivalent energy units in defining stocks and flows is a key to constructing an ecological model which reproduces the onset of myelomas as transitions between states of a system which reflects the energetics of plasma cells. This work provides a basis to construct more complex models representing myelomas, which can be compared with model ecosystems.Copyright: © 2023 Conte et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.