1,440 articles
Amoeboid cell
Amoeboid cell, or amoeboid migration: rounded, fast-moving eukaryotic cells (leukocytes, Dictyostelium, some cancer cells) that crawl via blebs and pseudopods with weak adhesion, Rho/ROCK-driven actomyosin contractility, and no matrix proteolysis.
AMPA receptor
AMPA receptor (AMPAR), ionotropic glutamate receptor mediating fast excitatory neurotransmission in the mammalian brain; tetramers of GluA1–GluA4, calcium permeability set by ADAR2-edited GluA2, regulated by TARP auxiliary subunits, and a target in epilepsy therapy.
Anaphase
Mitotic anaphase, the mitotic stage after metaphase where sister chromatids separate at centromeres and move to opposite spindle poles via anaphase A and B, triggered by APC/C, securin degradation, and separase cleavage of cohesin.
Anchorage-independent growth assay
The anchorage-independent growth assay tests whether cells can proliferate without attachment to a surface, most commonly in soft agar, and serves as a stringent in vitro test of malignant transformation.
Andrew P. Carter
Andrew P. Carter is a structural biologist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology known for determining how the motor protein dynein is switched off and on.
Angioblastic mesenchymal cell
Angioblastic mesenchymal cell (CL:0000566), or angioblast, a mesenchymal stem cell that develops into blood vessel endothelium; hemangioblast-derived, CD31/CD34/CD144/CD309/TAL1-positive, precursor in vasculogenesis.
Anisomycin
Anisomycin, also known as flagecidin, is a pyrrolidine antibiotic first isolated from Streptomyces griseolus in 1954 that inhibits eukaryotic protein synthesis and activates stress-activated protein kinases.
Anne Houdusse
Anne Houdusse (Anne Houdusse-Juillé) is a French structural biologist who heads a CNRS team at Institut Curie in Paris, known for her structural work on myosin VI.
Annexin V staining
Annexin V staining is a flow cytometry assay for apoptosis, detecting phosphatidylserine exposed on the cell surface and paired with propidium iodide to separate viable, apoptotic, and dead cells.
ANO1
ANO1 (anoctamin 1, TMEM16A, DOG1) is a human calcium-activated chloride channel gene on 11q13.3, identified in 2008, gating by direct Ca2+ binding, amplified in several cancers.
Anoikis
Anoikis (Greek "homelessness") is apoptosis triggered by loss of cell-ECM attachment, first named by Frisch and Francis in 1994; anoikis resistance lets cancer cells survive detachment and metastasize.
Anucleate cell
Anucleate cell (CL:0000225, non-nucleated cell): a cell lacking a nucleus. Main examples are mammalian red blood cells, platelets, corneocytes, and lens fiber cells; enucleation of erythroblasts is unique to mammals.
Aortic endothelial cell
Aortic endothelial cell (Cell Ontology CL:0002544): endothelial cell lining the aortic lumen. Single-cell studies in mouse and human show multiple subpopulations (EC1–EC5), some enriched for coronary artery disease GWAS variants.
Aortic smooth muscle cell
Aortic smooth muscle cell: the predominant VSMC of the aortic tunica media, arising from neural crest, somites, and secondary heart field; contractile, plastic, and central to aneurysm and dissection.
Apical junction component
Apical junction component: proteins of the epithelial apical junctional complex (tight junction plus adherens junction), including claudins, occludin, ZO scaffolds, and the annotated protein AJM1 (apical junction component 1 homolog), which mediate adhesion, barrier, and polarity.
Apoptosis
Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, named by Kerr, Wyllie, and Currie in 1972, is caspase-mediated, energy-dependent cell death via intrinsic, extrinsic, and perforin/granzyme pathways, without inflammation, distinct from necrosis.
AQP1
AQP1 (aquaporin 1, formerly CHIP28) is the first discovered membrane water channel, a homotetramer on chromosome 7p14 that carries the Colton blood group antigens, reabsorbs over 70% of glomerular filtrate water, and excludes protons.
Aquaporin
Aquaporins (AQPs, e.g. AQP1, AQP4; originally CHIP28) are membrane water-channel proteins found in nearly all organisms; discovered by Peter Agre in 1992, they form tetrameric pores with NPA and ar/R selectivity filters and earned the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Aquaporin 1
Aquaporin 1 (AQP1), originally CHIP28, is the first identified membrane water channel, a 269-amino-acid homotetramer in red cells and kidney proximal tubule; discovered by Peter Agre, Nobel Prize 2003.
Archaeplastida
Archaeplastida (Plantae sensu lato) is the eukaryote supergroup of glaucophytes, red algae, and green algae plus land plants, defined by a single primary cyanobacterial endosymbiosis about 1.9 billion years ago.
ARF1
ARF1 (ADP-ribosylation factor 1, Gene ID 375) is a 181-amino-acid class I small GTPase of the RAS superfamily, localized to the Golgi apparatus, that recruits COPI and clathrin coats for intra-Golgi vesicle transport; discovered in 1984 as a cholera toxin cofactor.
Arginine-glycine-aspartic acid
Arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD) is the tripeptide sequence Arg-Gly-Asp, identified in 1984 as the minimal cell attachment site of fibronectin and the basis for integrin-targeting drugs.
ARPE-19
ARPE-19 (Adult Retinal Pigment Epithelial cell line-19) is a spontaneously immortalized human retinal pigment epithelial cell line derived in 1986 from a 19-year-old male donor, widely used in ocular drug discovery.
Arpin
Arpin, encoded by the gene ARPIN (formerly C15orf38), is a 226-amino-acid human protein that inhibits the Arp2/3 complex and controls cell migration direction. Identified in 2013, its loss in breast cancer is linked to poor survival.
Array tomography
Array tomography is a microscopy method, introduced by Micheva and Smith in 2007, that cuts resin-embedded tissue into ultrathin serial sections and images them repeatedly to reconstruct three-dimensional volumes.
Articular chondrocyte
Articular chondrocyte (CL:1001607): the sole cell type of hyaline articular cartilage in synovial joints; maintains type II collagen/aggrecan matrix, shows zonal subtypes, mechanotransduction, and limited repair capacity.
Artificial ion channel
An artificial ion channel is a synthetic molecular or nanoscale structure that conducts selected ions across a lipid bilayer, imitating natural channel proteins and pursued by chemists since the 1980s.
AsPC-1
AsPC-1 (CVCL_0152, ATCC CRL-1682) is a human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cell line established in 1982 from the ascites of a 62-year-old woman, carrying homozygous KRAS G12D, SMAD4 R100T, and CDKN2A frameshift mutations, used in drug screening and metastasis research.
Aster (cell biology)
Aster (cell biology): star-shaped radial array of microtubules around each centrosome during animal cell division; astral microtubules position the spindle and nucleus via dynein pulling, and large embryonic asters grow by autocatalytic microtubule nucleation.
ATP-binding cassette transporter
ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters: ubiquitous ATP-powered membrane proteins with two NBDs and two TMDs; 48 human genes in seven subfamilies ABCA–G, linked to cystic fibrosis, adrenoleukodystrophy, cholestasis, and multidrug resistance.