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Glite Dictionary
🤕 To make fall 🏚️ To demolish 🧬 To reduce expression
to knock down

to knock down

1 7.8
Reduce how much a gene works in cells
  • phrasal verb
  • /nɑk daʊn/
  • Specialized
translation icon : silenciar
  • The scientists were able to knock down the expression level of the targeted gene effectively.
  • knock down your immune system

Which so a chemical can be anti androgenic, knock down androgens, knock down test or it can be pro androgenic, increase testosterone.

Examples

  • By applying antisense oligonucleotides, they managed to knock down the activity of the unwanted gene.

  • Spinosad could be used first to knock down most of the medfly population.

    Academic text (2000)

  • We knocked down the expression of these three genes using two to three different UAS transgenes per gene.

    Academic text (2017)

  • Researchers used RNA interference to knock down the gene responsible for producing the protein.

Synonyms

to downregulate
vsto knock down
  • Specialized
1 7.6

To reduce the activity or amount of something, such as genes and proteins

is the experimental technique that achieves reduction via targeted molecular tools

Antonyms

increase
524 1.0

The extra amount added to something to make it larger

How Reduced

to knock out
46 3.4
to suppress
176 4.8
to knock down
  • Specialized
1 7.8
to downregulate
  • Specialized
1 7.6

Surface Forms

knock down infinitive
knocked down past
knocked down past participle
knocking down present participle
knocks down third person singular

Morphology

knock + down

The sense 'to reduce the expression level of a gene' is a metaphorical extension of 'knock' + 'down' (to bring something down or reduce it), so a learner could infer a general meaning of reduction. However, the specific molecular-biology usage (gene expression reduction via RNAi) is specialized and not fully predictable from the constituents alone, so prior domain exposure is needed for the precise interpretation.

Etymology

Knock down in science comes from the same everyday image of knock, meaning to hit, and down, meaning lower. Scientists use it to mean 'to make a gene work less' when they reduce how active that gene is.