polygene Genetics.
(ˈpɒlɪdʒiːn)
[Back-formation from polygenic a. 3; cf. gene1.]
A gene whose individual effect on the phenotype of a single organism is too small to be observed, but which can act together with other, non-allelic polygenes to produce observable phenotypic variation in a quantitative character.
| 1941 Jrnl. Genetics XLI. 163 The inbreeding this line had undergone had in fact made it homozygous for the hair-number polygenes. 1949 [see polygenic a. 3]. 1961 Lancet 9 Sept. 601/2 One might envisage a system of pleiotropic masculinising polygenes located more or less randomly along the whole of the Y chromosome. 1973 Nature 21/28 Dec. 498/2 Techniques for the location of polygenes, developed in Drosophila but also very successful in mice and wheat, have not been applied to human material. |