jumping genes
CulturalExample Sentences
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Some are nicknamed jumping genes because they literally jump around, copying and pasting themselves into different parts of our genome just as if they were still viral invaders.
From Salon • Jun. 1, 2025
Further, most of these repeats consist of retrotransposons, also called "jumping genes" or "mobile elements," which can move around and insert themselves repeatedly and randomly in human code.
From Science Daily • Feb. 28, 2024
Viruses, so-called jumping genes, and a few other mechanisms are thought to be involved.
From Science Magazine • Oct. 19, 2023
Dr. Wei studies transposable elements, often called “selfish” or jumping genes for their abilities to make copies of themselves and insert them back into the genome.
From New York Times • Jul. 9, 2021
The geneticist Barbara McClintock discovered genetic elements that can move around within the genome—so-called jumping genes; she would win the Nobel Prize in 1983.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
