Propagation of wavefronts by chemical and mechanical signaling.

a) Color plot showing the chemical wavefront in two dimensions. The wave starts in the center (red dot) with a single Dirac delta peak release. The color coding indicates when a nucleus releases its chemical to the bulk, going from red through the different hues of the rainbow to violet. b) Plot showing the best fits (blue and purple lines) of the diffusion model with time delay to the to the two sets of experimental data (black and gray dots with error bars). Although the time delay manages to balance the trend that the wavefront speed increases in the region of interest (but not before), the model fails to describe the observed data. Here . c) Color plot showing the mechanical wavefront in two dimensions for totally anisotropic dipoles, including their orientations, which are picked at random, and free boundary conditions. The color coding is the same as in Figure a. d) Color plot showing the mechanical wavefront in two dimensions for totally isotropic dipoles and semi-periodic boundary conditions (periodic in vertical direction, free in horizontal direction). Wavefronts are initialized at both free ends simultaneously and travel to the center, as in the experimental system. e) Plot showing fit (purple) of the displacements calculated from the model to the experimentally obtained displacements (blue) following the onset of metaphase. Fit parameters same as in Figure e (set 1). Error bars obtained by averaging over a slice of , as indicated in Figure 1a. f) Plot showing fits (blue and purple lines) of the mechanical model for isotropic force dipoles and semi-periodic boundary conditions to the two sets of experimental data (black and gray dots with error bars). Fit parameters: , where is the dipole strength and the spacing in cycle 10, , and (blue line/black datapoints), (purple line/gray datapoints).