Fig. 4: Simulations based on the movement model effectively reproduce cell paths observed in experimental cultures.

For HeLa, T24 and NIH-3T3 populations, x–y coordinates registered during experimental time-lapse acquisitions and simulation experiments were used to draw paths followed by each cell, both under standard culture conditions (a) and during wound healing experiments (b); an opacity gradient is used to mark the passing of time while drawing cell paths. The calculated random (r), persistence (p) and bias (b) modules were reported under each graph. c For both standard and wound conditions, 10 populations were simulated starting either with the same number of cells as in the corresponding experimental one (red boxes) or with a standard number of 50 cells (blue boxes): for each movement parameter, a plot reports the distribution of its values among the simulated populations compared with the value obtained from the corresponding experimental one (black dashes). A grey background in the plot indicates parameters used to configure the features of the simulated cell populations.