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Medical Definition of Hypoxanthinosine
1. The fifth base of nucleic acids. Important because it fails to form specific pair bonds with the other bases. In transfer RNAs, this property is used in the anticodon to allow matching of a single tRNA to several codons. PCR perfomed with primers containing inosine tolerates a limited degree of mismatch between primer and template, useful in homology probing. This entry appears with permission from the Dictionary of Cell and Molecular Biology (11 Mar 2008)