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Glite Dictionary
⚪ A round shape 🧫 A cell cluster
spheroid

spheroid

7.7
A small round group of living cells grown in a lab to study tissue or cancer
  • noun
  • /ˈsfɪrɔɪd/
  • Specialized
translation icon : esferoide
  • The laboratory technician carefully analyzed the growth patterns of the spheroid to better understand cancer development.

Examples

  • And if you get these little spheroids that are lipid by layers up to a certain size, they will actually divide.

  • In cancer research, scientists often use a multicellular spheroid to simulate tumor behavior in the laboratory.

  • A spheroid provides a valuable model for studying the interactions between different cell types in tumor microenvironments.

Compounds

spheroid joint
  • Specialized
7.4

A joint where a round bone end fits in a cup, letting movement in all directions

Surface Forms

spheroid singular
spheroids plural

Morphology

spheroid = sphere (transparent) = sphere + oid

The biological sense is an extension of 'resembling a sphere' (sphere + -oid) to describe roughly spherical cell aggregates, so the formation is still directly deducible.

Etymology

Spheroid comes from the Greek sphaira 'ball' and the ending -oid 'like', so in biology the word labels a small, round group of cells grown in the lab because it looks like a tiny ball.