Reyes-Aldasoro Constantino Carlos
Department of Computer Science, City, University of London, London EC1V 0HB, UK.
Cancers (Basel). 2023 Jul 26;15(15):3796. doi: 10.3390/cancers15153796.
The Oxford English Dictionary includes 17 definitions for the word "model" as a noun and another 11 as a verb. Therefore, context is necessary to understand the meaning of the word model. For instance, "model railways" refer to replicas of railways and trains at a smaller scale and a "model student" refers to an exemplary individual. In some cases, a specific context, like cancer research, may not be sufficient to provide one specific meaning for model. Even if the context is narrowed, specifically, to research related to the tumour microenvironment, "model" can be understood in a wide variety of ways, from an animal model to a mathematical expression. This paper presents a review of different "models" of the tumour microenvironment, as grouped by different definitions of the word into four categories: model organisms, in vitro models, mathematical models and computational models. Then, the frequencies of different meanings of the word "model" related to the tumour microenvironment are measured from numbers of entries in the MEDLINE database of the United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. The frequencies of the main components of the microenvironment and the organ-related cancers modelled are also assessed quantitatively with specific keywords. Whilst animal models, particularly xenografts and mouse models, are the most commonly used "models", the number of these entries has been slowly decreasing. Mathematical models, as well as prognostic and risk models, follow in frequency, and these have been growing in use.
《牛津英语词典》为名词“model”列出了17种定义，为动词“model”列出了另外11种定义。因此，理解“model”一词的含义需要结合上下文。例如，“模型铁路”指的是按较小比例制作的铁路和火车复制品，而“模范学生”指的是堪称楷模的人。在某些情况下，像癌症研究这样的特定背景可能不足以赋予“model”一个特定的含义。即使将背景进一步缩小，具体到与肿瘤微环境相关的研究，“model”也可以有多种理解方式，从动物模型到数学表达式。本文对肿瘤微环境的不同“模型”进行了综述，根据“model”一词的不同定义将其分为四类：模式生物、体外模型、数学模型和计算模型。然后，从美国国立卫生研究院国家医学图书馆的MEDLINE数据库中的条目数量来衡量与肿瘤微环境相关的“model”一词不同含义的出现频率。还使用特定关键词对微环境的主要成分以及所模拟的器官相关癌症的出现频率进行了定量评估。虽然动物模型，特别是异种移植模型和小鼠模型，是最常用的“模型”，但这些条目的数量一直在缓慢减少。数学模型以及预后和风险模型的使用频率次之，且其使用量一直在增加。
