Figure 1.

a: A schematic of the selection process devised for enrichment of highly migratory airway epithelial cells from heterogeneous cultured cell lines. The cells migrated in the absence of chemotactic gradients and were collected from the lower migration chamber. To increase the selection pressure, the cells were serially selected through 8, 5 and then 3 µm pore membranes.

b: Highly migratory subpopulations were isolated from 6 cell lines (3 with and 3 without SNAIL). Double-headed arrows clarify how the functional, biomechanical, and genetic comparisons were made between the original and highly migratory populations.