Stochastic heterogeneity, not just noise:
Stochastic heterogeneity within biological tissues represents the inherent randomness in the biochemical processes within the cells. Various factors, such as asynchronized cell cycles16,17, differential metabolic18,19 & epigenetic states20,21, and the asymmetric distribution of organelles17,22, contribute to this randomness. Multiple studies have characterized the biological noise using single-cell measurements20,23,24 such as flow cytometry25,26, fluorescence microscopy27,28, real-time PCR29 and microfluidics30. Additionally, cellular variations in the gene expression over time31–34 due to transcriptional bursts35–37 also contributes to stochastic heterogeneity. In addition to this biochemical heterogeneity, physical heterogeneity has been reported in tissues of epithelial origin, initially revealed by spatiotemporal variations in cell-cell and cell-substrate forces across epithelium38(Fig 1B.).