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Glite Dictionary
nondisjunction

nondisjunction

1 9.9
Chromosomes do not separate during cell division, leaving cells with the wrong number of chromosomes
  • noun
  • /ˌnɒndɪsˈdʒʌŋkʃən/
  • Specialized
: no disyunción
  • The study on embryonic development revealed that nondisjunction significantly increases the risk of trisomy.

Examples

  • Nondisjunction can lead to conditions like nondisjunction due to an abnormal number of chromosomes.

  • When this does not happen, nondisjunction occurs.

    Academic text (2009)

  • During cell division, when chromosomes fail to separate, this phenomenon is known as nondisjunction.

Surface Forms

nondisjunction singular
nondisjunctions plural

Morphology

nondisjunction = disjunction (transparent) = non + disjunction

Formed by adding the negating prefix 'non-' to 'disjunction', so the meaning 'not (or failure of) disjunction' is directly derived, though the term is technical.

Etymology

Nondisjunction is made of parts: non- meaning 'not', and dis- plus junction, where dis- means 'apart' and junction means 'joining', so the whole idea is 'not separating'. So, nondisjunction describes when chromosomes fail to separate during cell division and a cell ends up with too many or too few chromosomes.