Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of several regulatory proteins, such as the interleukins and lymphokines, that are released by cells of the immune system and act as intercellular mediators in the generation of an immune response.
Wiktionary
- n. biochemistry, immunology Any of various small regulatory proteins that regulate the cells of the immune system.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any of various protein molecules secreted by cells of the immune system that serve to regulate the immune system
Etymologies
- cyto- + Greek kīnein, to move; see kinin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Swine and avian flus kill healthy people by invoking an overly aggressive immune response called a cytokine storm.”
“Certain viral infections cause the body's immune system to lose control and attack itself, a phenomenon known as a cytokine storm.”
The Wall Street Journal: To Keep Hearing Young, Play an Instrument
“Do patients have an unusually robust immune response to the virus -- the so-called cytokine storm?”
Richard P. Wenzel: The Return of Swine Flu -- A Death in the U.S. and Uncertainty
“Young people, because they produce so many antibodies, be a terrible thing called a cytokine storm, where they start to pour a lot of fluid into their lungs.”
“In what is known as a cytokine storm, the body quite literally destroys itself.”
“Initially known as cytokine synthesis inhibitor factor or CSIF, interleukin-10 (IL-10) is a potent immunomodulator of hematopoietic cells, particularly immune cells.”
“A cytokine is a small protein released by cells that affects the interactions and communications between cells and the behavior of cells.”
“Scientists fused a toxic substance known as a cytokine with a compound called peptide that guides it to cancer cells to avoid damaging healthy ones.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cytokine’.
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Learned (or Encountered) in Reading
I have a list for words learned from Newsweek; here's where I keep all the stuff from other shit I read.
Except when I'm looking stuff up and find new words that way. Those go on their...cellie, laminectomy, mridangam, terroir, hypospadias, crus, corpora cavernosa, crura, uretheral meatus, bartholin's gland, coloquintida, colopexy and 921 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, C
cryptoxanthin, convent, calcar, chuckle, campanile, covet, complexion, campestral, chirography, counterscarp, caliginous, catabolism and 722 more...
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bioinformatics and bioengineering words
What happens when you put a (former) English major at a bioinformatics and bioengineering summer institute? A list of wacky bio-words, of course!
proteomics, genomics, contig, dinucleotide, spectrometry, fovea, metagenomics, peptide, phylogenetics, protozoan, heterocyst, intracellular and 73 more...
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April 2010
ructus, eructation, emesis, merycism, cachexia, copremesis, fistula, hydrocephalus, glottis, afferent, efferent, bleb and 27 more...
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Science is Fun
parenchyma, stroma, fascia, mesenchyme, basophil, cytokine, opsonin
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cytokine.
aek2013 "proteins produced by immune cells that can influence cell behavior and affect interactions between cells" Aug 26, 2010
chained_bear "The actual process of inflammation involves the release by certain white blood cells of proteins called 'cytokines.' There are many kinds of white cells; several kinds attack invading organisms, while other 'helper' cells manage attacks, and still others produce antibodies. There are even more kinds of cytokines. Some cytokines attack invaders directly, such as interferon, which attacks viruses. Some act as messengers carrying orders. Macrophages, for example, release 'GM CSF,' which stands for 'granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor'; GM CSF stimulates the production in the bone marrow of more macrophages as well as granulocytes, another kind of white blood cell. Some cytokines also carry messages to parts of the body not normally considered belonging to the immune system; several cytokines can affect the hypothalamus, which acts like the body's thermostat...."
—John M. Barry, The Great Influenza (NY: Penguin Books, 2004), 248 Feb 16, 2009