Medical Definition of Gene family
1.
A set of genes coding for diverse proteins which, by virtue of their high degree of sequence similarity, are believed to have evolved from a single ancestral gene. An example is the immunoglobulin family where the characteristic features of the constant domains are found in various cell surface receptors.
This entry appears with permission from the Dictionary of Cell and Molecular Biology
(11 Mar 2008)
Lexicographical Neighbors of Gene Family
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