phenocopy

noun, verb — 2 senses

phenocopy

noun

Etymology From pheno- + copy.

Biology, Genetics, Medicine, Natural sciences, Sciences A phenotypic variation (in an organism) that resembles a phenotype from a genetic cause but has an environmental rather than genetic cause (and thus is not inherited).

phenocopy

verb

Etymology From pheno- + copy.

Biology, Genetics, Medicine, Natural sciences, Sciences To copy a genetic variation through environmental manipulation.

The wg- mutant can be phenocopied by injecting antisense RNA (complementary to the 3 kb wg+ transcript) into wild-type embryos.1990, David de Pomerai, From Gene to Animal, →ISBN, page 275:

Related terms: phenocopier

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.