TROPISM

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does tropism mean? 

• TROPISM (noun)
  The noun TROPISM has 1 sense:

1. an involuntary orienting response; positive or negative reaction to a stimulus source

  Familiarity information: TROPISM used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TROPISM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An involuntary orienting response; positive or negative reaction to a stimulus source

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("tropism" is a kind of...):

reaction; response (a bodily process occurring due to the effect of some antecedent stimulus or agent)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "tropism"):

ergotropism (an affinity for work)

geotropism (an orienting response to gravity)

heliotropism (an orienting response to the sun)

meteortropism (an effect of climate on biological processes (as the effect on joint pains etc.))

neurotropism (an affinity for neural tissues)

phototropism (an orienting response to light)

trophotropism (an orienting response to food)

thermotropism (an orienting response to warmth)

 Context examples 

This renders them selective (thanks to the phenomenon of tropism toward the cells of origin), and makes it possible for them to carry a therapeutic load preferentially to the original cell, even in the presence of other cells.

(Scientists successfully deliver “Trojan horse” catalysts into cancerous tumour cells to destroy them from within, Universities of Granada)

While vaccinia displays a natural tumor cell tropism, deletion of the thymidine kinase gene increases the tumor selectivity of vaccinia by limiting viral replication to transformed cells. hGM-CSF expression by this agent may help recruit antigen processing cells (APCs), such as denritic cells and macrophages, to virally infected tumor cells, initiating a systemic antitumoral immune response.

(Pexastimogene-devacirepvec, NCI Thesaurus)

Having demonstrated the effectiveness of this process in their study, the researchers observe: “We collected exosomes of the same type of cancerous cell that was to be treated, we loaded them with the palladium catalyst and returned them to the culture medium. There, thanks to their selective tropism, the exosomes deliver the catalyst to the original cell.

(Scientists successfully deliver “Trojan horse” catalysts into cancerous tumour cells to destroy them from within, Universities of Granada)