Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A section of DNA that contains the genetic code for a single polypeptide and functions as a hereditary unit.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Sometimes used interchangeably with the word
gene , a cistron is theunit ofhereditary material (e.g.DNA ) that encodes one protein.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (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
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[From cis-trans test, a genetic test (cis– + trans–) + –on.]
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word cistron.
Examples
-
They explicitely explain that streptomycin resistance is the result of the organisms singular rRNA cistron, which renders them with one reversible mutation from almost completely resistant/non-resistant.
-
This idea is expressed by the classic slogan of Beadle: "one gene - one enzyme", or in the more sophisticated but cumbersome terminology of today: "one cistron - one polypeptide chain".
-
As I was grappling with some of the more technical passages that contained words like allele, nucleotide, cistron, and mitosis,
The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Joseph Smigelski 2010
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.