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Genetics & Biotechnology vocabulary · Inheritance and Population Genetics

Dominant

Meaning in genetics & biotechnology, with examples

/ˈdɑːmɪnənt/adjectiveCore term

In genetics & biotechnology, dominant means: Describes an allele that shows its effect even when only one copy is present, so it hides the effect of the other allele.

In Turkish: baskın, dominant

How it is used

Used in inheritance and clinical genetics. A condition is 'autosomal dominant' when one altered copy on a non-sex chromosome is enough to cause it, as in Huntington disease. Each child of an affected parent then has a 50% chance of inheriting it. The noun is 'dominance'.

Example sentences

  1. Huntington disease has a dominant pattern of inheritance.

  2. In pea plants, the allele for purple flowers is dominant over the allele for white flowers.

Common collocations

  • autosomal dominant
  • dominant allele
  • dominant over
  • dominant negative
  • recessiveDescribes an allele whose effect only appears when a person has two copies of it, one from each parent.
  • alleleOne of the different versions of a gene that can exist at the same position on a chromosome. You inherit one allele of each gene from each parent.
  • inheritanceThe passing of genetic characteristics from parents to their offspring through genes.
  • heterozygousHaving two different alleles of a particular gene, one inherited from each parent.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Inheritance and Population Genetics

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