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:
“Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“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)
“Advocating the mere tolerance of difference between women is the grossest reformism. It is a total denial of the creative function of difference in our lives. Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic.”
—Audre Lorde (1934–1992)