mosaicism

American

[moh-zey-uh-siz-uhm] / moʊˈzeɪ əˌsɪz əm /

noun

Biology.

a condition in which an organism or part is composed of two or more genetically distinct tissues owing to experimental manipulation or to faulty distribution of genetic material during mitosis.

Etymology

Origin of mosaicism

First recorded in 1925–30; mosaic + -ism

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

This results in what is called "mosaicism," where genetically different cells occur within one individual.

From Science Daily • Apr. 1, 2024

This mix of cell lines is called mosaicism.

From Scientific American • Jun. 1, 2022

“If you have any mosaicism, then you don’t know what you’ve got in the rest of the embryo,” Lovell-Badge says.

From Science Magazine • Mar. 21, 2022

Other researchers have reported mosaicism in efforts to edit human embryos for research purposes.

From Nature • Nov. 29, 2018

To study the effect of this mosaicism, Priest and his colleagues built a computer simulation of Astrea’s heart.

From Seattle Times • May 27, 2018

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023