  The intratumor heterogeneity has been recognized to characterize cancer cells
impairing the efficacy of cancer treatments. We here propose an extension of
constraint-based modeling approach in order to simulate metabolism of cell
populations with the aim to provide a more complete characterization of these
systems, especially focusing on the relationships among their components. We
tested our methodology by using a toy-model and taking into account the main
metabolic pathways involved in cancer metabolic rewiring. This toy-model is
used as individual to construct a population model characterized by multiple
interacting individuals, all having the same topology and stoichiometry, and
sharing the same nutrients supply. We observed that, in our population, cancer
cells cooperate with each other to reach a common objective, but without
necessarily having the same metabolic traits. We also noticed that the
heterogeneity emerging from the population model is due to the mismatch between
the objective of the individual members and the objective of the entire
population.
