Figure 2. 1D mother machine trap simulation.

(a) A schematic depiction of the mother machine trap setup. Four cells were placed back-to-back from the closed top of the trap and grew toward the open end (c). (b) Spring compression depends on cell position. In equilibrium, compression is lowest for the lead cell and highest for the mother cell. Higher equilibrium spring compressions near the back of the trap reflect the higher mechanical inhibition detected by cells close to the mother cell. Equilibrium spring compression is a quadratic function of position in the trap (see Appendix). (d) Expansion speed depends on cell position. Although all four cells eventually reach the same steady-state expansion speed, cells near the back of the trap take longer to do so. Rest length expansion rate was set to $\dot{R}=0.1$ μm min⁻¹ and initial cell length was 2 μm. Spring constant k and damping parameter γ were set to 1.0, as in Figure 1.