English

Noun

polyploidy ‎(usually uncountable, plural polyploidies)

1. (genetics) The state or condition of being a polyploid; having more than the usual two homologous sets of chromosomes.
   • 2011, Terence Allen and Graham Cowling, The Cell: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford 2011, p. 90:

     As they mature, the DNA is replicated several times but the cell does not divide, a condition known as polyploidy which allows cells to increase in size.

   • 2014 June 28, “Double or quits”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8893:

     This propensity to polyploidy helps account for the diversity (and thus success) of flowering plants, in particular. It is also known that flowering plants sailed majestically through the life-destroying asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous period, which did for the dinosaurs and many other animals.

Translations

Derived terms

• endopolyploidy

Related terms

• ploidy