Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
In cellular biology, a somatic cell (from Ancient Greek σῶμα (sôma) ' body '), or vegetal cell, is any biological cell forming the body of a multicellular organism other than a gamete, germ cell, gametocyte or undifferentiated stem cell. [1] Somatic cells compose the body of an organism and divide through mitosis.
In cellular biology, the term somatic is derived from the French somatique which comes from Ancient Greek σωματικός (sōmatikós, “bodily”), and σῶμα (sôma, “body”.) [1] [2] is often used to refer to the cells of the body, in contrast to the reproductive cells, which usually give rise to the egg or sperm (or other gametes in other organisms).
Somatic mutations accumulate within an organism's cells as it ages and with each round of cell division; the role of somatic mutations in the development of cancer is well established, and the accumulation of somatic mutations is implicated in the biology of aging.
Such cells, called somatic cells, make up most of the human body, such as skin and muscle cells. Cells differentiate to specialize for different functions. [8] Germ line cells are any line of cells that give rise to gametes—eggs and sperm—and thus are continuous through the generations. Stem cells, on the other hand, have the ability to ...
Adult stem cells are undifferentiated cells, found throughout the body after development, that multiply by cell division to replenish dying cells and regenerate damaged tissues. Also known as somatic stem cells (from Greek σωματικóς, meaning of the body), they can be found in juvenile, adult animals, and humans, unlike embryonic stem ...
Somatic hypermutation (or SHM) is a cellular mechanism by which the immune system adapts to the new foreign elements that confront it (e.g. microbes).A major component of the process of affinity maturation, SHM diversifies B cell receptors used to recognize foreign elements and allows the immune system to adapt its response to new threats during the lifetime of an organism. [1]
In addition, stem cell are undifferentiated cells which can develop into a specialized cell and are the earliest type of cell in a cell lineage. [2] Due to the differentiation in function, somatic cells are found only in multicellular organisms, as in unicellular ones the purposes of somatic and germ cells are consolidated in one cell.
A relationship between mean cell number and cell number variation was established following a law possessing an exponent of 2 upon a variety of multicellular eutelic taxa. [7] Hydatina senta (Phylum Rotifera, Order Bdelloidea) is a species of rotifers which demonstrate the most complete cell constancy of any species studied before 1912. [8]