Exogenous
From AIDS Wiki
Exogenous (or exogeneous) (from the Greek words "exo" and "gen", meaning "outside" and "production") refers to an action or object coming from outside a system. It is the opposite of endogenous, something generated from within the system.
In biology, the term exogenous has the following meanings:
- Exogenous refers to an action or object coming from the outside of a system. For example, an exogenous contrast agent in medical imaging refers to a liquid injected IV in the patient that enhances visibility of a pathology, such as a tumor.
- An exogenous factor is any material that is present and active in an individual organism or living cell but that originated outside of that organism, as opposed to an endogenous factor.
- Exogenous factors in medicine include both pathogens and therapeutics.
- DNA introduced to cells via transfection or viral infection (transduction) is an exogenous factor.
- Carcinogens are exogenous factors.
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Credit
 | This page uses content from the Exogenous article on Wikipedia, captured on 7 Feb 2006. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with the AIDS Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. |
