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Medical Definition of Somatic mutation
1. Mutation that occurs in the somatic tissues of an organism and that will not, therefore, be heritable, since it is not present in the germ line. Some neoplasia is due to somatic mutation, a more conspicuous example is the reversion of some branches of variegated shrubs to the wild type (completely green) phenotype. Somatic mutation is probably also important in generating diversity in V gene regions of immunoglobulins. This entry appears with permission from the Dictionary of Cell and Molecular Biology (11 Mar 2008)
Lexicographical Neighbors of Somatic Mutation
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