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retroposon

retroposon noun: a fragment of DNA inserted into a chromosome following reverse transcription from RNA.

Noun

retroposon (plural retroposons)

  1. A fragment of DNA inserted into a chromosome following reverse transcription from RNA.
    • The best-known retroposons are “copia” and the families similar to copia, which were discovered in Drosophila but are also found in many other animals and even in yeast and higher plants, and the similarly ubiquitous foldback (FB) element, "THE1" in humans and "VL30" in rats and mice.1994, Klaus Urich, Comparative Animal Biochemistry, page 21

Forms of retroposon

pluralretroposons

Origin of retroposon

From retropose + -on.

Questions about retroposon

What does retroposon mean?
Retroposon means a fragment of DNA inserted into a chromosome following reverse transcription from RNA.
What part of speech is retroposon?
Retroposon is a noun.
What is the plural of retroposon?
The plural of retroposon is retroposons.

Words near retroposon in the dictionary

  1. retropositional
  2. retropositionally
  3. retropositioned
  4. retropositioning
  5. retropositions
  6. retroposon
  7. retroposons
  8. retropresbyteral
  9. retroprocessing
  10. retroprojection
  11. retropropulsion

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: retroposon (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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