Estimating the mutation rate to mutator phenotypes

The mutator phenotype hypothesis by Loeb et al. (1974) proposes the existence of cells that have a higher mutation rate than the rest of the cell population and that, consequently, occasionally favor the appearance of mutant cells. Such cells, often called mutator cells, are related to drug resistance, genetic instability, and increasing the probability of cancer development. Nevertheless, most mutator cells are not directly observable, but their effect and the mutant cells within this subpopulation are. We have been working on new models to simulate the dynamics of cell reproduction, including wildtype, mutant, mutator, and mutant mutator cells. These models represent a faster alternative to preexistent models and are comparable to the Moran model in terms of the distribution of the simulations. This work aims to take advantage of the countings of mutant mutator cells to infer the number of mutator cells. Besides, we are using the empirical probability-generating function to estimate the mutation rate of interest.