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Definition of "retrotransposon" []

  • A transposon copied from RNA with the use of reverse transcriptase. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "retrotransposon" in a sentence
  • "Rapid amplification of a retrotransposon subfamily is evolving the mouse genome."
  • "I'd also point out that the delectable S A Smith overeggs her cake by claiming, 'retroelements are just dandy for phylogenetic analysis', what the paper she cites actually says is, 'The presence of a retrotransposon at a single locus in multiple taxa remains an extremely powerful phylogenetic marker, but caution is required before concluding that the existence of a particular SINE at a particular locus in multiple individuals is indicative of common ancestry'."
  • "This could occur during the migration of a retrotransposon, or when a virus incompletely inserts its genome into the cellular genome."