Frameshift

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A frameshift mutation. countable, uncountable
Verb
  1. 1
    To use a starting point for translating a series of nucleotides that is off by an amount not divisible by three, resulting in an entirely distinct set of codons.

    "Commonly, there are stimulatory signals in mRNA distinct from the shift site that greatly increase the level of frameshifting at the shift site."

Example

More examples

"Commonly, there are stimulatory signals in mRNA distinct from the shift site that greatly increase the level of frameshifting at the shift site."

Etymology

From frame + shift.

Related phrases

frameshift mutation

More for "frameshift"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.