Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to a mutation that changes a codon for one amino acid into a codon for a different amino acid.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To give a wrong sense or meaning to.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun biology A damaged DNA sequence that is meaningful but has an incorrect meaning, with the result that its products do not do what they are supposed to do.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[mis– + (non)sense.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word missense.

Examples

  • Genetic diseases are often caused by a specific type of genetic alteration called a missense mutation that makes cells add an incorrect amino acid into the protein chain.

    PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2010

  • Genetic diseases are often caused by a specific type of genetic alteration called a missense mutation that makes cells add an incorrect amino acid into the protein chain.

    Scientific Blogging 2010

  • Genetic diseases are often caused by a specific type of genetic alteration called a missense mutation that makes cells add an incorrect amino acid into the protein chain.

    PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2010

  • DDS: These individuals carry specific alterations known as missense mutations, mostly in exons 8 or 9 of one working copy of the WT1 gene.

    WT1-Related Wilms Tumor (WT) Syndromes 2009

  • Three of these resulted in missense mutations in mitochondrially encoded NADH dehydrogenases 1, 2 and 4, and one caused a nonsense mutation in ATPase 6.

    Embryonic Stem Cell Lines Prove Unstable | Impact Lab 2005

  • The missense mutation resulted in inactivation of the autoglucosylation of glycogenin-1 that is necessary for the priming of glycogen synthesis in muscle.

    Medlogs - Recent stories 2010

  • The missense mutation resulted in inactivation of the autoglucosylation of glycogenin-1 that is necessary for the priming of glycogen synthesis in muscle.

    Medlogs - Recent stories 2010

  • GYG1, revealed a nonsense mutation in one allele and a missense mutation, Thr83Met, in the other.

    Medlogs - Recent stories 2010

  • To confirm the HIF-1α-dependent regulation of 5-FU responsiveness and to further characterize the contribution of p53, we examined a second human gastric cancer cell line (MKN28), which carries a missense mutation in

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Nadine Rohwer et al. 2010

  • The missense mutation resulted in inactivation of the autoglucosylation of glycogenin-1 that is necessary for the priming of glycogen synthesis in muscle.

    Medlogs - Recent stories 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • A mutation that changes a single amino acid, with no effect on the rest of the amino acid sequence of the synthesized polypeptide.

    September 20, 2009

  • as opposed to, e.g., a frame-shift mutation, which will generally screw up the entire remainder of the sequence

    September 20, 2009

  • Or e.g. a synonymous mutation, which is a mutation that does not change any amino acid and is therefore (considered) neutral.

    March 16, 2011