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allele Definition

al·lele (ə lēl)

noun

either of a pair of genes located at the same position on both members of a pair of chromosomes and conveying characters that are inherited in accordance with Mendelian law

Etymology: Ger allel < Gr allēlōn, of one another

allele Related Forms

al·lel·ic (ə lēlik, -lel-) adjective al·lel·ism′ (-lēliz′əm, -lel-) noun

allele Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • inherit: To be affected by the disease, which shows autosomal recessive inheritance, a baby must inherit a mutant allele from each parent.
  • carry: There is also a slightly elevated creatine kinase level in females carrying a DMD disease allele.
  • associate: Association studies The approach used to identify SNP alleles associated with disease susceptibility is conceptually quite straightforward.

Preposition: at

  • locus: Multiple alleles at multiple gene loci plus environmental factors are involved in neural tube defects.
  • marker: Bits are coded 0 or 1 according to whether the sib inherited its alleles at the marker from paternally or maternal derived chromosome.

Adjective modifier

  • recessive: Here the recessive allele produces the ordinary blue, also called English blue or American blue.
  • paternal: These sequence variants are called maternal and paternal alleles.
  • mutant: A very few new mutant alleles can drift to fixation in this manner.
  • deleterious: I am interested to see if purging of deleterious alleles by selection is occurring in captive populations.
  • maternal: However, this approach is not suitable for the analysis of fetal genetic traits that do not differ largely from the maternal alleles.
  • expanded: Expanded alleles at all of these loci are unstable, with frequent length changes during intergenerational transmission.

Preposition: on

chromosome: If there is a green allele on chromosome 19 and the rest of the alleles are blue, eye color will be green.

Modifies a noun

frequency: Genetically, races differ with respect to allele frequencies rather than in the possession of unique alleles.

Preposition: of

gene: A locus can be occupied by any of the alleles of the gene.

Noun used with modifier

  • premutation: Conclusions: Individuals carrying premutation alleles are at high risk of having affected offspring within a limited number of generations.
  • wild-type: In 5/6 patients the wild-type allele was lost in the tumor samples, suggesting a causal role for the mutations in RCC.
  • susceptibility: The susceptibility alleles underlying at least 70 % of the familial risk of breast cancer remain to be identified.
  • marker: Model-based linkage disequilibrium unit ( LDU ) maps appear robust to marker density and consistently influenced by marker allele frequency.
  • T: The T allele was associated with higher excretion rates than the C allele.
  • resistance: By this time probably something like half of the alleles in the population are for resistance alleles.