Fig. 4: Effect of division rate differences among E, H and M phenotypes on population’s heterogeneity and overall growth dynamics.

Ai Support of the different initial conditions: In each case, the initial condition is uniformly distributed on its support, and such that the total initial population equals 100 cells. Aii Profile of different growth functions, expressed per hour; ‘r1’: All three phenotypes divide at same rate; ‘r2’: E and H divide at equal rates, while M divide at half the rate of E cells; and ‘r3’: Both H and M divide at equal but half the rate of E cells. Bi Temporal changes in hybrid cell fraction in the population for different growth scenarios among phenotypes. Bii Time evolution of population’s heterogeneity (measured by differential entropy). C Population growth dynamics for different combinations of growth scenarios and initial condition; ‘epi hyb mes’ corresponds to an initial condition uniformly distributed on the three coloured domains of A1), and ‘uni’ to a uniform population on the whole rectangle [0, 25 K] × [150 K, 250 K]. For (B), the initial condition is uniformly distributed in all states. The input SNAIL mean (S₀) levels used are mentioned for all the individual plots. Other parameters used to generate plots are α = 120 h, η_x = 1000, and the division rate (r) of the epithelial phenotype is 0.0182/h.