effector

American  

[ih-fek-ter] / ɪˈfɛk tər /

noun

1. Also effecter a person or thing that effects.

2. Physiology. an organ or cell that carries out a response to a nerve impulse.

3. Biochemistry. a substance, as a hormone, that increases or decreases the activity of an enzyme.

4. end effector.

   The device has three arms with effectors that can grip and pick up objects.

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effector British  

/ ɪˈfɛktə /

noun

1. physiol a nerve ending that terminates in a muscle or gland and provides neural stimulation causing contraction or secretion

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Etymology

Origin of effector

1595–1605; < Latin, equivalent to effec-, variant stem of efficere ( see effect) + -tor -tor

Example Sentences

To explore what happens after these proteins enter human cells, the researchers mapped more than a thousand interactions between bacterial effector proteins and human proteins.

From Science Daily • Mar. 27, 2026

"The presence/absence of large genomic regions across these lineages showed that horizontal transfers of effector genes, namely genes that are important in establishing successful infection, contributed to establishing host specificity."

From Science Daily • Dec. 5, 2024

A research paper titled "Targeted recruitment of immune effector cells for rapid eradication of influenza virus infections" has been published in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

From Science Daily • Nov. 19, 2024

"The synthetic screening platform developed by our team solves the protein matching issue through rapid, large-scale testing of effector and target protein interactions," said Poirson.

From Science Daily • Mar. 22, 2024

Since those organs are therefore the mechanisms in which the ultimate effect of the nervous reaction takes place, they are often termed from this point of view effector organs.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Slice 4 "Bradford, William" to "Brequigny, Louis" by Various