Fig 1. Diagrammatic representation of the tumor-immune interaction model.

(a) Cellular interaction network representing the key players of the tumor microenvironment, viz. Cancer Stem Cells (S), Cancer cells (C), their drug resistant counterparts (S_R and C_R), M1-TAM, M2-TAM, T_H1, T_H2, Tc, Treg immune cells, and cytokines IL10, IFN-γ and IL-2; The tumor microenvironment has been grouped into three parts, viz.- core tumor and infiltrated Tc cells (red box), the immune-stimulators (green box) and the immune-suppressors (orange box); the Black arrows represent Activation, while the Red arrow represent Inhibition; (b) Stem cell differentiation pattern.