Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A group of closely linked genes occupying a large chromosomal segment and frequently functioning as a genetic unit.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun genetics A group of neighbouring genes on a chromosome that are inherited together because of close genetic linkage and are functionally related in an evolutionary sense.
  • adjective geology, of a mineral leached and then deposited by descending waters

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

super- +‎ gene

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Examples

  • "We were blown away by what we found," said Mathieu Joron of France's National Museum of Natural History, who led the probe into what is being called a "supergene".

    NEWS.com.au | Top Stories 2011

  • "We were blown away by what we found," said Mathieu Joron of France's National Museum of Natural History, who led the probe into what is being called a "supergene".

    NEWS.com.au | Top Stories 2011

  • There was also talk of a "supergene" with copper deposits of up to 50 per cent -- who could tell?

    AustralianIT.com.au | Top Stories 2010

  • Mechanisms that concentrate chemical elements operate most effectively on and near the earth's surface: weathering, erosion, sorting during transport, groundwater leaching, and supergene enrichment are effective only in the upper few hundred meters of the continents.

    Limits to Exploitation of Nonrenewable Resources (historical) Earl Cook 2007

  • Breeding crop plants resistant to such plagues would be much quicker, and cheaper, once the apomictic supergene has been identified.

    Day of the Dandelion Peter Pringle 2007

  • There is a furious international scientific race with plant breeders from America, Britain, Russia, Australia, India—and probably China—all trying to identify this supergene so they can patent it.

    Day of the Dandelion Peter Pringle 2007

  • If Scott had found the supergene for apomixis, and if he planned to patent it himself, he would need the seeds to file a patent.

    Day of the Dandelion Peter Pringle 2007

  • Well, Minister, they call it the race to find a supergene that controls asexual reproduction in plants, known as apomixis.

    Day of the Dandelion Peter Pringle 2007

  • New research on a supergene linking brain power and a long, healthy life.

    CNN Transcript Dec 26, 2006 2006

  • Starting from three different directions, your long journey has led you, after many adventures, to the same supergene area, the major histocompatibility complex, and through it to this happy event tonight.

    The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1980 - Presentation Speech 1992

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