SOMATIC CELL

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does somatic cell mean? 

• SOMATIC CELL (noun)
  The noun SOMATIC CELL has 1 sense:

1. any of the cells of a plant or animal except the reproductive cells; a cell that does not participate in the production of gametes

  Familiarity information: SOMATIC CELL used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SOMATIC CELL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of the cells of a plant or animal except the reproductive cells; a cell that does not participate in the production of gametes

Classified under:

Nouns denoting body parts

Synonyms:

somatic cell; vegetative cell

Context example:

somatic cells are produced from preexisting cells

Hypernyms ("somatic cell" is a kind of...):

cell ((biology) the basic structural and functional unit of all organisms; they may exist as independent units of life (as in monads) or may form colonies or tissues as in higher plants and animals)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "somatic cell"):

skin cell (any of the cells making up the skin)

epithelial cell (one of the closely packed cells forming the epithelium)

neoplastic cell (a cell that is part of tumor)

bone cell (a cell that is part of a bone)

blood cell; blood corpuscle; corpuscle (either of two types of cells (erythrocytes and leukocytes) and sometimes including platelets)

phagocyte; scavenger cell (a cell that engulfs and digests debris and invading microorganisms)

visual cell (one of the cells of the retina that is sensitive to light)

adipose cell; fat cell (cells composed of fat)

muscle cell; muscle fiber; muscle fibre (an elongated contractile cell that forms the muscles of the body)

Schwann cell (any cell that covers the nerve fibers in the peripheral nervous system and forms the myelin sheath)

nerve cell; neuron (a cell that is specialized to conduct nerve impulses)

glial cell; neurogliacyte; neuroglial cell (a cell of the neuroglia)

hybridoma (a hybrid cell resulting from the fusion of a lymphocyte and a tumor cell; used to culture a specific monoclonal antibody)

labrocyte; mast cell; mastocyte (a large connective tissue cell that contains histamine and heparin and serotonin which are released in allergic reactions or in response to injury or inflammation)

stem cell (an undifferentiated cell whose daughter cells may differentiate into other cell types (such as blood cells))

target cell (any cell that has a specific receptor for an antigen or antibody or hormone or drug, or is the focus of contact by a virus or phagocyte or nerve fiber etc.)

 Context examples 

The appearance of the chromosomal makeup of a somatic cell in an individual or species, including the number and arrangement and size and structure of the chromosomes.

(Karyotype, NCI Thesaurus)

A surface receptor on NK cells involved in binding to MHC Class I molecules presented on somatic cells as part of a recognition mechanism.

(LY-49, NCI Thesaurus)

A type of pluripotent stem cell, similar to an embryonic stem cell, formed by the introduction of certain embryonic genes into a somatic cell.

(induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC), The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Any type of recombination occuring within somatic cells and involving possible exchange and frequent loss of segments of DNA by either homologous or nonhomologous recombination of broken DNA strands.

(Mitotic Recombination, NCI Thesaurus)

They used somatic cell nuclear transfer, the same method that was used to create Dolly the sheep in 1996.

(Healthy cloned monkeys born in Shanghai, Wikinews)

A chromosomal abnormality consisting of the absence of one of the copies of chromosome 7 in somatic cells.

(Monosomy 7, NCI Thesaurus)

It is characterized by predisposition to cancer, immunodeficiency, high sensitivity to UV and genomic instability of somatic cells. (Oncogene 2001 Dec 13;20(57):8276-80)

(Bloom syndrome, NCI Thesaurus)

The inactive, condensed X chromosome in a female somatic cell.

(Barr Body, NCI Thesaurus)

A family of immunogenic proteins that are found in a wide variety of tumors but are not expressed in adult somatic cells.

(Cancer/Testis Antigen, NCI Thesaurus)

The germ cells, collectively as distinguished from the somatic cells or soma, are the reproductive cells of the body, specifically, either egg or sperm cells.

(Murine Germ Cells, NCI Thesaurus)