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cistron

cist·ron

uncommon

noun

1.

(genetics) a segment of DNA that is involved in producing a polypeptide chain; it can include regions preceding and following the coding DNA as well as introns between the exons; it is considered a unit of heredity

  • “genes were formerly called factors”
Synonyms

Origin

Coined by American molecular biologist Seymour Benzer in 1957, from cis + trans + -on. Named in the context of using a "cis-trans comparison" for identifying " […] whether two mutants, having similar defects, are indeed defective in the same way."

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.