tumorigenicity
1
9.8
- noun
- /ˌtjuːmərɪdʒɪˈnɪsɪti/
- Specialized
- The researchers studied the tumorigenicity of different cell lines in order to understand their potential for causing cancer.
- tumorigenicity of cells
Examples
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A balance has yet to be struck among the amplification potential, genetic stability, and tumorigenicity of the cells.
Academic text (2013) -
It was also shown that OCT4-pg4 can promote the growth and tumorigenicity of hepatocellular carcinoma cells, thus exerting an oncogenic role in hepatocarcinogenesis.
Academic text (2016) -
The results indicated that certain chemicals can increase the tumorigenicity of healthy cells, making them more likely to form tumors.
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The team focused on the tumorigenicity of the virus to determine its risk factor for developing tumors in laboratory animals.
Synonyms
1
9.4
The ability of a substance to cause cancer
How Tumorigenic
- Specialized
1
9.4
- Specialized
1
9.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
tumorigenicity = tumorigenic (semi-transparent) = tumor + igenic + ity
The noun is a regular nominalization of the specialized adjective 'tumorigenic', but the biomedical adjective itself is not fully transparent to an average learner.
Etymology
Tumorigenicity breaks into tumor meaning 'swelling' and -genic meaning 'to produce', the same idea you see in generate. So tumorigenicity is the ability of cells or substances to 'produce' tumors, which explains why scientists use it to talk about a material's cancer risk.