Meaning & use
polycistronic
Last updated
describing a strand of messenger RNA that codes for more than one protein.
See it in a sentence
Bacteria commonly use polycistronic mRNA to produce several related proteins from a single transcript.
The operon's genes are transcribed together into a single polycistronic mRNA molecule.
A note on using this word
Polycistronic mRNA is common in bacteria but rare in humans and other eukaryotes, which mostly produce monocistronic mRNA encoding just one protein per transcript.
Words with an opposite meaning
monocistronic
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