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ex·ome | \ ˈek-ˌsōm 
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\Definition of exome
: the part of the genome consisting of exons that code information for protein synthesis
The Personal Genome Project is beginning with the exome: the 1 percent of our genome that is translated into strings of amino acids that assemble themselves into proteins.— Steven Pinker The exome is the portion of the genome known to encode proteins … . Whole-exome sequencing has the advantage of reduced cost and analysis of a much smaller data set than that obtained by sequencing the entire genome.— Howard J. Jacob
Examples of exome in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web In all, the PCAWG project was able to find at least one driver mutation in about 95% of the tumor samples, compared with just 67% with exome sequencing, says Peter Campbell of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, another project member.
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Jocelyn Kaiser, Science | AAAS, "Massive cancer genome study reveals how DNA errors drive tumor growth," 5 Feb. 2020 Other genes among the 10 spotted by the exome work didn’t overlap with earlier GWAS markers, but are involved in synaptic and neuronal processes, and may reveal novel details of the disease’s biology, Singh says.
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Jocelyn Kaiser, Science | AAAS, "Intensive DNA search yields 10 genes tied directly to schizophrenia," 25 Oct. 2019 Hoping to move faster, a global consortium called Schizophrenia Exome Sequencing Meta-Analysis 2 years ago began to gather patients’ exomes, or the DNA that codes for proteins, rather than regulating genes.
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Jocelyn Kaiser, Science | AAAS, "Intensive DNA search yields 10 genes tied directly to schizophrenia," 25 Oct. 2019 But sequencing the exome would miss any changes in DNA that controls the activity of nearby genes, so there's a lot of potential information that this study design would have missed.
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John Timmer, Ars Technica, "Infectious cancer hasn’t done much over the last 4,000 years," 3 Aug. 2019 Whole-genome sequencing tends to cost much more than whole-exome, but prices of both are declining rapidly.
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Dana Wechsler Linden, WSJ, "DNA Testing Offers New Hope for Infants With Genetic Disease," 28 May 2018 Unlike most direct-to consumer genetic tests that analyze short segments of DNA for genetic variants relevant to specific diseases, Helix sequences the exome — the 22,000 genes where mutations are responsible for most clinical diseases.
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Catherine Ho, San Francisco Chronicle, "Helix, a startup that stores your genetic data online, nets $200 million," 1 Mar. 2018 The exome is where most genetic research has occurred, and where most diseases have been found to date.
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Dana Wechsler Linden, WSJ, "DNA Testing Offers New Hope for Infants With Genetic Disease," 28 May 2018 Helix customers pay a one-time $80 fee to have their exome sequenced and stored in the company’s server, and can later take multiple tests that access their DNA information from the same database.
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Catherine Ho, San Francisco Chronicle, "Helix, a startup that stores your genetic data online, nets $200 million," 1 Mar. 2018
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'exome.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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Time Traveler for exome
The first known use of exome was in 2008
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