Mutation timing in a spatial model of evolution

Abstract: Motivated by models of cancer formation in which cells need to acquire

k

mutations to become cancerous, we consider a spatial population model in which the population is represented by the

d

-dimensional torus of side length

L

. Initially, no sites have mutations, but sites with

i - 1

mutations acquire an

i

th mutation at rate

m u_{i}

per unit area. Mutations spread to neighboring sites at rate

a l p h a

, so that

t

time units after a mutation, the region of individuals that have acquired the mutation will be a ball of radius

a l p h a t

. We calculate, for some ranges of the parameter values, the asymptotic distribution of the time required for some individual to acquire

k

mutations. Our results, which build on previous work of Durrett, Foo, and Leder, are essentially complete when

k = 2

and when

m u_{i} = m u

for all

i

.

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