Function
These proteins were originally characterized by their capacity to induce oncogenic transformation in a specific cell culture system, rat kidney fibroblasts. Application of the transforming growth factors to normal rat kidney fibroblasts induces the cultured cells to proliferate and overgrow, no longer subject to the normal inhibition caused by contact between cells.
Read more about this topic: Transforming Growth Factor
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“Nobody seriously questions the principle that it is the function of mass culture to maintain public morale, and certainly nobody in the mass audience objects to having his morale maintained.”
—Robert Warshow (1917–1955)
“Uses are always much broader than functions, and usually far less contentious. The word function carries overtones of purpose and propriety, of concern with why something was developed rather than with how it has actually been found useful. The function of automobiles is to transport people and objects, but they are used for a variety of other purposes—as homes, offices, bedrooms, henhouses, jetties, breakwaters, even offensive weapons.”
—Frank Smith (b. 1928)
“The function of comedy is to dispel ... unconsciousness by turning the searchlight of the keenest moral and intellectual analysis right on to it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)