Glossary

Biochemistry, molecular genetics, and biology glossary terms for Companion Sites.

pseudogenes

Pseudogenes are non-functional relatives of known functional genes, which have lost protein-coding ability or are no longer expressed in the cell.

Pseudogenes may have some gene-like features, such as promoters, CpG islands, and splice sites, yet are nonfunctional in that they lack protein-coding ability. This loss of gene function results from stop codons, frameshifts, lack of transcriptional capacity, or from an inability to function as an RNA (as with rRNA pseudogenes).

. . . since 10/06/06