Library · Physiology
Cytokine
Make it clearer
A cytokine is a very small protein that cells use to talk to each other. It is a signaling molecule, that is, a chemical message, and cytokines are key players in cell communication.
The message is not shouted into the air. The cytokine binds a specific receptor on the surface of the cell that is meant to hear it, and that binding switches on a chain of second messengers inside the cell, the molecules that carry the signal inward. It is a message that only opens the lock it was cut for. It can go to the cell that produced it, which is autocrine action, to the neighboring cell, which is paracrine, to the cell pressed right against it, which is juxtacrine, or travel far away, which is endocrine.
Two features stand out. Many cytokines are redundant: several different ones do similar things. And many are pleiotropic, a word that means a single one acts on many different cell types.
In brief
Cytokines are small cell signaling proteins and are important molecules for communication between cells.
They act in autocrine, paracrine, juxtacrine or endocrine fashion, always binding specific receptors on the cell surface that trigger second messenger cascades.
It is a message that only opens the lock it was cut for.
Many are redundant, because several carry out similar functions, and many are pleiotropic, because they act on a wide variety of cell types.
Sources (2)
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, El Rosario University Press, BogotáCytokines, chemokines and growth factors, Autoimmunity: From Bench to BedsidePublished
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, StatPearls PublishingInterleukin, StatPearlsPublished
This page explains the topic in general terms; it does not tell anyone what treatment to follow.
Updated