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Meaning of jumping gene in English:

jumping gene

noun

informal
another term for transposon
‘In 1997, in another study, University of Minnesota researchers took defunct, non-functioning jumping genes from fish and made the genes jump again.’
  • ‘Next, they scanned the genomes of these microbes for jumping genes.’
  • ‘Eventually he worked out the source of that extra DNA: It was a transposon, also known as a jumping gene.’
  • ‘Another, more speculative hypothesis is that perhaps fungi, which live within the roots of many distantly related plants, served as a conduit for the jumping genes.’
  • ‘If someone develops some ideal dairy cow and wants to clone it he does not want jumping genes creating variations that cause some of them clones to produce less milk.’