smooth muscle cell
- noun
- /smuːð ˈmʌsəl sɛl/
- Specialized
:
célula de músculo liso
- Smooth muscle cells are essential for the involuntary contraction of organs such as the bladder.
- vascular smooth muscle cells
- proliferation of smooth muscle cells
Examples
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The contraction of smooth muscle cells in the blood vessel walls regulates blood flow and pressure.
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In the digestive system, smooth muscle cells help move food along the intestines.
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There was no proliferation of smooth muscle cells identified.
Academic text (2007) -
So we predict that these mutations cause problems with smooth muscle cell contractility.
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Engineers in his department first grew vascular smooth muscle cells on a glass coverslip using standard cell culture techniques.
Academic text (2009) -
Histological analysis confirmed smooth muscle cell migration from the tunica intima to media on days 3 and 7 in groups E and F.
Academic text (2012) -
Hyperhomocysteinemia may also stimulate a proliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells.
Academic text (2003) -
They then stained cytoskeletal fibers of the vascular smooth muscle cells using fluorescent antibodies.
Academic text (2009) -
PDGF-A chain peptide and mRNA were overexpressed by both intimal and medial smooth muscle cells in arteries with chronic rejection 21.
Academic text (2007) -
The endothelial cell damage in the inside surface of the artery causes a two-fold effect, so the smooth muscle cells lying deep in the endothelium start to multiply and protrude against the endothelium cell lining.
Synonyms
4
3.4
A long cell in the body that gets shorter to make the body move
3
3.0
A long body cell that makes muscles move by becoming shorter and longer
2
8.0
A muscle cell that contracts to make parts of the body move
How Automatic
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase denotes a cell that belongs to or composes 'smooth muscle' and is directly derivable from combining 'smooth' (non-rough/unstriated) + 'muscle' (tissue for movement) + 'cell' (basic living unit). This standard modifier–head composition is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will grasp the general meaning (specialized physiological details like involuntary contraction may require domain knowledge).
Etymology
Smooth muscle cell is named for how it looks and what it does: smooth because the cells look even and without stripes under a microscope, muscle because they make tissue that moves, and cell because they are the tiny living parts that do the work. These cells make organs and blood vessels tighten or relax on their own, so the name helps explain their role in 'not under our control'.