actin

Term: actin

Literally meaning: “ ray”

Origin: Anc Greek

'áκτίς, -[éνος/ actis(=ray) > (genitive) ακτίνος/actinos

+(-ίνη)/-in,  chemical ending that forms feminine nouns such as feminine French suffix:  –ine)

Coined/History

Actin was extracted first time from muscle by British physiologist W.D.Halliburton (1860-1887), in 1887. The protein was isolated in a pure form in 1942 by Hungarian Bruno F Straub (1914-1996) and named as actin by Szent-Gyorgyi (1893-1986) in 1945. Szent-Gyorgyi demonstrated that actin with myosin are responsible for muscular contraction, and showed that the ATP is the immediate source of energy in muscle contraction.

Source   

Halliburton, W.D. (1887). “On muscle p[lasma” J Physiol. 8 (3-4): 133.

Szent-Gyorgyi, A. 1945. “Studies on muscle.” Acta Physiol Scandinav 9 (suppl. 25)..

Definition

Actin is a globular (42-kDa) and highly-conserved protein found almast in all eukaryotic cells. Actin is the monomeric subunit of microfilaments and thin filaments playing a major role in many cellular processes such as cytokinisis, cell molity and muscle contraction.