Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A DNA sequence that is part of a genome and is not known to code for proteins or to regulate the expression of genes. Junk DNA may constitute up to 95 percent of the human genome and is postulated to be involved in the evolution of new genes and possibly the repair of genes.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun genetics Any portion of the
DNA sequence of achromosome or agenome for which no function has been identified.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[From junk.]
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