Fig. 6: Simulation of NIH3T3-like cells moving under wound healing experiments.

Movement parameters obtained from the experimental cell population, kept under standard conditions, of panels (a-c) were used to produce synthetic populations moving in a wound healing experiment in panels (d–h). a Phase contrast images taken at 24 hour distance of cells exponentially growing under standard culture conditions and in absence of any directional bias (left side images), compared to a simulated cell culture “grown” under the same conditions and rendered at the same times using a phase-contrast inspired symbolic representation (right side images). b Movement paths of experimental and simulated cells during the 24 h period, drawn by using an opacity gradient to mark the passing of time. c Contributions to cell displacement of random (blue), persistence (green) and bias (red) evaluated for experimental and simulated cells by analysing, at each time point, overlapping 12-h windows. d A wound healing simulation, where the cell population uses parameters from the experimental population of panel (a), is compared to a wound healing experiment featuring an independent experimental population. For both simulated and experimental populations the images are organised as in panel (a). e–g Movement paths for experimental and simulated sub-populations corresponding to cells located after the wound at the front (e), middle (f) or back (g), drawn, as in (b), by using an opacity gradient to mark the passing of time. h Average contributions to cell displacement of random (blue), persistence (green) and bias (red) evaluated over time, by separately analysing overlapping 12-h windows for experimental and simulated cells located at the front (fr), middle (md) and back (in). i Distribution of displacement, random, persistence and bias values obtained for experimental cells from 5 populations under standard culture conditions (red boxes), 16 populations at the wound front (blue boxes) and 6 intermediate (green boxes) and internal populations (violet boxes). The corresponding values from the simulated populations are reported as dashes.