microenvironment

Examples of microenvironment in the following topics:

• Microbial Environments and Microenvironments

  • These differences define so-called microenvironments (or microhabitats) that can be distinguished from the immediate surroundings by such factors as the amount of incident light, the degree of moisture, and the range of temperatures.
  • For example, the side of a tree that is shaded from sunlight is a microenvironment that typically supports a somewhat different community of microorganisms than would be found on the side that receives regular light.

• Cell Inclusions and Storage Granules

  • While the cDNA may properly code for a translatable mRNA, the protein that results will emerge in a foreign microenvironment.
  • The internal microenvironment of a prokaryotic cell (pH, osmolarity) may differ from that of the original source of the gene.

• Immunotherapy for Cancer

  • In the case of cancer tumors, the microenvironment is immunosuppressive, allowing even those tumors that present unusual antigens to survive and flourish in spite of the immune response generated by the cancer patient against his own tumor tissue.

• Treatment of Animal Viral Infections

  • Coronavirus (CoV) genome replication takes place in the cytoplasm in a membrane-protected microenvironment, and starts with the translation of the genome to produce the viral replicase.