minicirclen.
/ˈmɪnɪsəːkl/, U.S. /ˈmɪniˌsərkəl/ Molecular Biology.
Any small circular DNA molecule; esp. any of those present in large numbers in the kinetoplasts of trypanosomatids, which code for guide RNAs that are involved in the post-transcriptional modification of mitochondrial mRNA. Cf. maxicircle n.
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the world > life > biology > biological processes > genetic activity > genetic components > [noun] > nucleic acid > DNA
thymo-nucleic acid1904
deoxyribonucleic acid1931
DNA1944
DNase1949
C1958
minicircle1967
Z-DNA1979
1967 Jrnl. Molecular Biol. 28 382 Tertiary structures similar to the minicircles reported here in Trypanosoma have already been described.
1984 Nucleic Acids Res. 12 4747 A minicircle consisting of 1440 bp was isolated from male fertile sugar beet mitochondria.
1993 Sci. Amer. Mar. 96/1 The mitochondrial DNA of trypanosomes has a unique structure: it consists of several dozen large loops called maxicircles and thousands of smaller ones called minicircles.
2001 Jrnl. Biol. Chem. 276 23018 This permits..excision of the entire bacterial vector sequences from plasmid constructs to create supercoiled gene expression minicircles for gene therapy.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, March 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1967