Know this is simple but what is an effector? According to VCAA: Signal transduction can be considered in terms of a stimulus-response model and should be described, in simple terms, as a three-step process: reception (information is received by a cell’s receptor), transduction (information from the receptor is passed on to an effector) and induction/response (various cellular responses are initiated).
Is the effector step the synthesis of second messenger
Could someone please give me a simple definition for signal transduction haha
Effectors are the things that do stuff. So this step is the 'intermediate' stage between steps 1 and 3 - 1 is binding to the receptor and 3 is the effector actually doing something, so this is the message being passed from the receptor to the effector (which could be an enzyme, a transcription factor, or anything else that actually causes cellular responses) - and yeah, this happens through second messengers.
VCAA definition: the series of events that occur after the receipt of a specific signal and which result in a response.
So: the stuff that happens when we get a signal, that leads to the cell responding to the signal.