Fig. 4

Circular core population and the cell dissemination threshold. a Snapshot of an initial configuration and the cell dissemination threshold distance (red circle). Nodes without cells are black, whereas nodes with occupied channels are coloured [colour bar legend for adhesive states shown in (c)]. The cell population is heterogeneous regarding single cell adhesive states. Note that the mean adhesive states is averaged over all ten channels in a given node. Accordingly, the mean adhesive state at the border nodes of the occupied area is lower due to unoccupied channels. b Snapshot of the simulation after 900 time steps. Several cells disseminated from the population and reached the threshold distance indicated by the red line. These cells are considered as disseminated cells (green dots). Note that disseminated cells are shown in green here, independent of their adhesive state