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The Learning Kingdom's Cool Word of the Day for April 30, 1999
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cytokine [n. SY-toe-kyn]
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A cytokine is a substance that causes living cells to grow and divide.
Some cytokines are hormones that circulate in the blood, and others
are released from individual cells, causing their neighbors to grow.
If cytokines get out of control for some reason, they can contribute
to conditions like cancer, in which cells grow without limit.
Like many scientific words, "cytokine" is a compound of Greek or Latin
roots. "Cyto-" is a scientific prefix that means "of a cell," from
the Greek kutos (hollow vessel). The second part, "-kine," is from
the Greek kinein (to move). Another word that uses the same two roots
is cytokinesis (the splitting of a cell during reproduction).
More "cellular" words:
cytology: the study of cells
cytoplasm: the living fluid that fills cells
cytolysis: the destruction of a cell
cytoskeleton: the internal protein framework of a cell
erythrocyte: a red blood cell
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