auxotrophy
nounEtymology From auxo- + -trophy.
1
Biology, Natural sciences Usually The inability of a microorganism to synthesize an organic compound required for its growth, often as a result of mutation.
- There are reasons for believing that the mutation rates to auxotrophy are in general higher than the rates to prototrophy.1951 March, K. C. Atwood, “Periodic Selection in Escherichia Coli”, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, volume 37, number 3, page 146:
- Related terms
- auxotroph, auxotrophic, auxotrophically, autotrophy
- Coordinate terms
- prototrophy