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Medical Definition of Chromosome fragile sites
1. Heritable sensitive regions of chromosomes which show up in vitro as non-staining bands. They are associated with chromosome breakage and other aberrations, and, when located on sex chromosomes, they produce phenotypic abnormalities. No abnormal phenotype has been definitely identified with autosomal fragile sites, but some rare autosomal recessive disorders may be due to homozygosity for fragile sites. Fragile sites are designated by the letters "fra" followed by the designation for the specific chromosome and locus. (12 Dec 1998)