complementary DNA

American  

[kom-pluh-men-tuh-ree dee-en-ahy] / ˈkɒm pləˌmɛn tə ri ˈdiˈɛnˈaɪ /

noun

1. cDNA.

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complementary DNA British  

noun

1.  cDNA.  a form of DNA artificially synthesized from a messenger RNA template and used in genetic engineering to produce gene clones

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complementary DNA Scientific  

1. Single-stranded DNA synthesized in the laboratory using messenger RNA as a template and the enzyme reverse transcriptase. Complementary DNA is used for many purposes such as mapping chromosomes, creating clones, and sequencing genes.

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Etymology

Origin of complementary DNA

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

PPRHs are single-stranded DNA molecules, known as oligonucleotides, that can bind precisely to complementary DNA or RNA sequences.

From Science Daily • Oct. 22, 2025

The process of PCR anneals DNA molecules to complementary DNA strands, which maintains the same amount of DNA.

From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022

The samples would be warmed up again, and enzymes would get to work building off those primers to finish replicating the complementary DNA sequences.

From Scientific American • Feb. 16, 2022

Projecting a deep whole-genome shotgun assembly, complementary DNA and deep RNA sequence data onto this framework supports 79,379 transcript clusters, including 26,159 ‘high-confidence’ genes with homology support from other plant genomes.

From Nature • Dec. 5, 2012

We suspected that we had not made this error, but our judgment conceivably might be biased by the biological advantages of complementary DNA molecules.

From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson