Definition of "transduction" [trans•duc•tion]

• Transfer of genetic material or characteristics from one bacterial cell to another by the incorporation of bacterial DNA into a bacteriophage. (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.

• "They can receive them via phages, viruses that infect bacteria, which is called transduction."
• "We could indeed show that lambda-mediated transduction is based on the formation of substitution mutants, which had replaced a part of the phage genes by genes from the bacterial chromosome."
• "In relation to DNA, hereditary changes are now known to take place as a consequence of mutation, or of the introduction of new genetic material through virus infection (as in transduction) or directly (as in transformation)."