cistron

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. The unit of hereditary material (e.g. DNA) that encodes one protein.

Word forms

cistron cistrons

Etymology

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."

Synonyms

Related words

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