Cell biology

A myofibroblast is a cell that is in between a fibroblast and a smooth muscle cell in phenotype.

Lysis (/ˈlaɪsᵻs/ LY-səs; Greek λύσις lýsis, "a losing" from λύειν lýein, "to unbind") refers to the breaking down of the membrane of a cell, often by viral, enzymic, or osmotic (that is, "lytic" /ˈlɪtᵻk/ LIT-ək) mechanisms that compromise its integrity.

Macrophages (Greek: big eaters, from Greek μακρος (makros) = large, φαγειν (phagein) = to eat) are a type of white blood cell that engulfs and digests cellular debris, foreign substances, microbes, cancer cells, and anything else that does not have the types of proteins specific of healthy body cells on its surface in a process called phagocytosis.

Heteroplasmy is the presence of more than one type of organellar genome (mitochondrial DNA or plastid DNA) within a cell or individual.

Synapsis (also called syndesis) is the pairing of two homologous chromosomes that occurs during meiosis.

Separase, also known as separin, is a cysteine protease responsible for triggering anaphase by hydrolysing cohesin, which is the protein responsible for binding sister chromatids during the early stage of anaphase.

Basophilia is a condition where the basophil quantity is abnormally elevated (more than 1010 basophils per liter of blood).

Osmosis is the spontaneous net movement of solvent molecules through a semi-permeable membrane into a region of higher solute concentration, in the direction that tends to equalize the solute concentrations on the two sides.

White adipose tissue (WAT) or white fat is one of the two types of adipose tissue found in mammals.

Hemangioblast are the multipotent precursor cells that can differentiate into both hematopoietic and endothelial cells.

An axon (from Greek ἄξων áxōn, axis), is a long, slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, that typically conducts electrical impulses away from the neuron's cell body.

A mast cell (also known as a mastocyte or a labrocyte) is a type of white blood cell.

Monocytes are a type of white blood cell, or leukocyte.

Eosinophils, sometimes called eosinophiles or, less commonly, acidophils, are a variety of white blood cells and one of the immune system components responsible for combating multicellular parasites and certain infections in vertebrates.

Chondroblasts, or perichondrial cells, is the name given to mesenchymal progenitor cells in situ which, from endochondral ossification, will form chondrocytes in the growing cartilage matrix.

A basophil is a type of white blood cell.

Ploidy is the number of sets of chromosomes in a cell.

The enzyme citrate synthase [E.

In biology, a connexon, also known as a connexin hemichannel or a pannexin channel, is an assembly of six proteins called connexins that form the pore for a gap junction between the cytoplasm of two adjacent cells.

Cell therapy (also called cellular therapy or cytotherapy) is therapy in which cellular material is injected into a patient; this generally means intact, living cells.

The sarcolemma (sarco (from sarx) from Greek; flesh, and lemma from Greek; sheath.) also called the myolemma, is the cell membrane of a striated muscle fiber cell.

Multicellular organisms are organisms that consist of more than one cell, in contrast to unicellular organisms.

Microvilli (singular: microvillus) are microscopic cellular membrane protrusions that increase the surface area of cells and minimize any increase in volume, and are involved in a wide variety of functions, including absorption, secretion, cellular adhesion, and mechanotransduction.

A flagellate is a cell or organism with one or more whip-like organelles called flagella.

Syntaxins are a family of membrane integrated Q-SNARE proteins participating in exocytosis.

Hyperplasia (from ancient Greek ὑπέρ huper, "over" + πλάσις plasis, "formation"), or hypergenesis, is an increase in the amount of organic tissue that results from cell proliferation.

A syncytium or symplasm (/sɪnˈsaɪtiəm/; plural syncytia; from Greek: σύν (syn) = "together" + κύτος (kytos) = "box, i.e. cell") is a multinucleated cell that can result from multiple cell fusions of uninuclear cells (i.e., cells with a single nucleus), in contrast to a coenocyte, which can result from multiple nuclear divisions without accompanying cytokinesis.

A HeLa cell /ˈhiːlɑː/, also Hela or hela cell, is a cell type in an immortal cell line used in scientific research.

Oxidative stress reflects an imbalance between the systemic manifestation of reactive oxygen species and a biological system's ability to readily detoxify the reactive intermediates or to repair the resulting damage.

The glycocalyx is a glycoprotein-polysaccharide covering that surrounds the cell membranes of some bacteria, epithelia and other cells.

Cell culture is the process by which cells are grown under controlled conditions, generally outside of their natural environment.

The cell membrane (also known as the plasma membrane or cytoplasmic membrane) is a biological membrane that separates the interior of all cells from the outside environment.

A T-tubule (or transverse tubule) is a deep invagination of the sarcolemma, which is the plasma membrane of skeletal muscle and cardiac muscle cells.

Microfilaments, also called actin filaments, are filamentous structures in the cytoplasm of eukaryotic cells and form part of the cytoskeleton.

Dynamin is a GTPase responsible for endocytosis in the eukaryotic cell.

A myocyte (also known as a muscle cell) is the type of cell found in muscle tissue.

Sarcoplasm is the cytoplasm of a myocyte (muscle fiber).

In cell biology, a deuterosome is a protein structure within a multiciliated cell (such as an epithelial cell of respiratory tract) that produces multiple centrioles.

Tyzzeria is a genus of parasitic protozoa that with one exception (Tyzzeria boae) infect the cells of the small intestine.

Ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes, also known as E2 enzymes and more rarely as ubiquitin-carrier enzymes, perform the second step in the ubiquitination reaction that targets a protein for degradation via the proteasome.

Ergosterol (ergosta-5,7,22-trien-3β-ol) is a sterol found in cell membranes of fungi and protozoa, serving many of the same functions that cholesterol serves in animal cells.

The Journal of Cellular Physiology is a peer-reviewed scientific journal focusing on all aspects of cellular physiology.

Cellosaurus is an on-line knowledge resource on cell lines.

WormBase is an online biological database about the biology and genome of the nematode model organism Caenorhabditis elegans and contains information about other related nematodes.

In cell biology, molecular biology and related fields, the word intracellular means "inside the cell".

Platelets, also called thrombocytes (thromb- + -cyte, "blood clot cell"), are a component of blood whose function (along with the coagulation factors) is to stop bleeding by clumping and clotting blood vessel injuries.

COPI is a protein complex that coats vesicles transporting proteins from the cis end of the Golgi complex back to the rough endoplasmic reticulum (ER), where they were originally synthesized, and between Golgi compartments.

Evolution of cells refers to the evolutionary origin and subsequent evolutionary development of cells.

Myoepithelial cells (sometimes referred to as myoepithelium) are cells usually found in glandular epithelium as a thin layer above the basement membrane but generally beneath the luminal cells.

7-Aminoactinomycin D (7-AAD) is a fluorescent chemical compound with a strong affinity for DNA.

Pleomorphism is a term used in histology and cytopathology to describe variability in the size, shape and staining of cells and/or their nuclei.

Autoinducer-2 (AI-2), a furanosyl borate diester, is a member of a family of signaling molecules used in quorum sensing.

Septins are a group of GTP-binding proteins found primarily in eukaryotic cells of fungi and animals, but also in some green algae.

Biochemical Predestination is a 1969 book by Dean H.

'ENA/VASP Homology proteins' or 'EVH' proteins are a family of closely related proteins involved in cell motility in vertebrate and invertebrate animals.

Formins (formin homology proteins) are a group of proteins that are involved in the polymerization of actin and associate with the fast-growing end (barbed end) of actin filaments.

Genetic resistance to disease, of which malaria is a specific example, is an inherited change in the genome of an organism that confers a selective survival advantage due to conferring or increasing resistance to disease.

A histiocyte is an animal cell that is part of the mononuclear phagocyte system (also known as the reticuloendothelial system or lymphoreticular system).

WormBook is an open access, comprehensive collection of original, peer-reviewed chapters covering topics related to the biology of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans).

Langhans giant cells (also known as Pirogov-Langhans cells) are large cells found in granulomatous conditions.

15-Hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (also termed 15-HETE, 15(S)-HETE, and 15S-HETE) is an endogenous eicosanoid, i.

Phosphoinositide phospholipase C (PLC) (EC 3.1.4.11, triphosphoinositide phosphodiesterase, phosphoinositidase C, 1-phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate phosphodiesterase, monophosphatidylinositol phosphodiesterase, phosphatidylinositol phospholipase C, PI-PLC, 1-phosphatidyl-D-myo-inositol-4,5-bisphosphate inositoltrisphosphohydrolase) is a family of eukaryotic intracellular enzymes that play an important role in signal transduction processes.

A reticular cell is a type of fibroblast that synthesizes Collagen, type III, alpha 1 and uses it to produce reticular fibers.

COPII is a type of vesicle coat protein that transports proteins from the rough endoplasmic reticulum to the Golgi apparatus.

Dolichol refers to any of a group of long-chain mostly unsaturated organic compounds that are made up of varying numbers of isoprene units terminating in an α-saturated isoprenoid group, containing an alcohol functional group.

Tissue engineering is the use of a combination of cells, engineering and materials methods, and suitable biochemical and physicochemical factors to improve or replace biological tissues.

Differential centrifugation is a common procedure in microbiology and cytology used to separate certain organelles from whole cells for further analysis of specific parts of cells.

Alain Viel is the director of Northwest Undergraduate Laboratories and senior lecturer in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University.

A myokine is one of several hundred cytokines or other small proteins (~5–20 kDa) and proteoglycan peptides that are produced and released by muscle cells (myocytes) in response to muscular contractions.

CellCognition is a free open-source computational framework for quantitative analysis of high-throughput fluorescence microscopy (time-lapse) images in the field of bioimage informatics and systems microscopy.

Chromatin bridge is a mitotic occurrence that forms when telomeres of sister chromatids fuse together and fail to completely segregate into their respective daughter cells.

Ciliogenesis is defined as the building of the cell's antenna (primary cilia) or extracellular fluid mediation mechanism (motile cilium).

(p)ppGpp, guanosine pentaphosphate or tetraphosphate is an alarmone which is involved in the stringent response in bacteria, causing the inhibition of RNA synthesis when there is a shortage of amino acids present.

CC chemokine receptors (or beta chemokine receptors) are integral membrane proteins that specifically bind and respond to cytokines of the CC chemokine family.

The Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank (DSHB) is a non-profit, global hybridoma bank.