noun
- Chemical substances secreted by slime mold cells that attract other cells and trigger aggregation during the organism's life cycle.
Usage: biology; plural of acrasin; primarily used in scientific contexts
Examples
- Acrasins are released by slime mold cells to coordinate their movement toward a central location.
- The discovery of acrasins helped scientists understand how single-celled organisms communicate chemically.
- Dictyostelium discoideum produces acrasins that guide neighboring amoeboid cells during aggregation.
- Researchers studied how acrasins diffuse through the environment to trigger cellular responses.