Chemokinesis

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title: "Chemokinesis" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["motile-cells", "perception", "signal-transduction"] description: "Chemically prompted movement of single-celled organisms" topic_path: "general/motile-cells" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemokinesis" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Chemically prompted movement of single-celled organisms ::

Chemokinesis is chemically prompted kinesis, a motile response of unicellular prokaryotic or eukaryotic organisms to chemicals that cause the cell to make some kind of change in their migratory/swimming behaviour. Changes involve an increase or decrease of speed, alterations of amplitude or frequency of motile character, or direction of migration. However, in contrast to chemotaxis, chemokinesis has a random, non-vectorial moiety, in general.{{cite journal | author= Becker EL | title= Stimulated neutrophil locomotion: chemokinesis and chemotaxis. | journal= Arch Pathol Lab Med| year= 1977| volume= 101| pages=509–13 | issue=10 | pmid= 199132}} | title= How do leucocytes perceive chemical gradients? | journal= FEMS Microbiol. Immunol.| year= 1990| volume= 2| pages=303–11 | doi= 10.1111/j.1574-6968.1990.tb03533.x | issue= 5–6| pmid= 2073411 | doi-access= }} Due to the random character, techniques dedicated to evaluate chemokinesis are partly different from methods used in chemotaxis research. One of the most valuable ways to measure chemokinesis is computer-assisted (see, e.g., Image J) checker-board analysis, which provides data about migration of identical cells, whereas, in Protozoa (e.g., Tetrahymena), techniques based on measurement of opalescence were also developed.{{cite journal | doi= 10.1002/bies.950140113 | author= Leick V, Hellung-Larsen P. | title= Chemosensory behaviour of Tetrahymena| journal= BioEssays | year= 1992| volume= 14| pages=61–6 | issue=1 | pmid= 1546982}}

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Chemokinesis-en.png" caption="<div style="text-align: center;border:none">Chemokinesis"] ::

References

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::