Fig. 8.

Equilibrium mean adhesive state distributions in cell populations with adhesion heterogeneity (γ=0.25) and fast regulation mode. a and b show the distributions of mean adhesive states $ā$ in equilibrium for cell populations with only intrinsic adhesion heterogeneity (γ>0 and α=0) and the fast regulation mode at time k=1 and k=1000 (CONTROL ⁻/FAST, Scenario I). There is one expected peak at the steady state of the adhesion receptor regulation model [Eq. (1)]. The distribution stays constant over time. c and d show the distributions of $ā$ in equilibrium for cell populations with additional extrinsic adhesion heterogeneity (γ>0 and α=1) and the fast regulation mode at time k=1 and k=1000 (CONTROL ⁺/FAST, Scenario III). At k=1 the distribution is equal to (a). At k=1000 a second peak at lower adhesive states occurs. The equilibrium adhesivity distributions do not differ when the slow regulation mode is considered (Additional file 10)