Definition of ACTIN

Examples of actin in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web: Noun Other microorganisms travel using amoeboid movement, driven by flexing of their cellular skeletons, built from the protein actin. — Tom Siegfried, Smithsonian, "How Tiny, Microbe-Propelled Bots Could Deliver Drugs In Our Bodies," 26 Sep. 2019 Filaments of the protein actin, for example, could have stabilized contacts between the hosts and symbionts and improved the coupling of their metabolisms. — Quanta Magazine, "Researchers Rethink the Ancestry of Complex Cells," 9 Apr. 2019 Wan believes the cell’s preference depends on the interplay between two elements of the cellular skeleton: actin and myosin. — Tim Vernimmen, Quanta Magazine, "How Life Turns Asymmetric," 31 Jan. 2017 Nearly all multicellular animals, except for simple ones like sponges, depend on muscles to move, and all their muscles use some form of contracting fibers in which filaments of the proteins actin and myosin pull past one another to generate force. — Quanta Magazine, "Too Small for Big Muscles, Tiny Animals Use Springs," 13 June 2018 Like a pasta maker, the scale cell squeezes out and assembles a lattice of actins. — Gwen Pearson, WIRED, "How Butterflies Get Their Shine," 22 Dec. 2014

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History and Etymology for actin

Noun

Combining form

borrowed from Greek aktino-, from aktīn-, aktís "ray, beam, spoke of a wheel"

Note: The Greek word has traditionally been linked with Sanskrit aktú-, conjectured to mean "twilight," and with Germanic *uŋhtwōn- "last part of the night, dawn," whence Old English ūhte "twilight, daybreak," Old High German uohta "dawn," Old Norse ōtta "last part of the night," Gothic uhtwo "dawn," from Indo-European *n̥k^wt-u-n-, a zero-grade derivative of *nok^wt-/*nek^wt- "night" (see night entry 1). Robert Beekes (Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Leiden, 2009) rejects this connection on the grounds that aktís "shows no trace of a labiovelar." In reference to actinic radiation, the formative actino- was probably first used by John herschel in actinometer (1833).

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