hairpin transfer

noun

Transfer of genetic information from a strand of nucleic acid that terminates in a hairpin ribozyme by first detaching one side of the base of the hairpin, so that the hairpin is flattened out before making the RNA copy.

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Meanings

nounhairpin transfer (plural hairpin transfers)

plural hairpin transfers

  1. biologyTransfer of genetic information from a strand of nucleic acid that terminates in a hairpin ribozyme by first detaching one side of the base of the hairpin, so that the hairpin is flattened out before making the RNA copy.

    Because the terminal sequences are not perfect inverted repeats, hairpin transfer results in two end sequences that are related but the inverted complement of each other.

    1999, Allan Granoff, Robert G. Webster, Encyclopedia of Virology
    1 more example

    Conclusive evidence that hairpin transfer does occur as hypothesized was provided by assays that employed a closed hairpin form of the viral ITR, which was constructed from the cloned AAV genome (Snyder et al., 1990).

    2005, Jonathan Kerr, Susan Cotmore, Marshall E Bloom, Parvoviruses, page 194
Cite this entry
APA

hairpin transfer. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hairpin%20transfer

MLA

“hairpin transfer.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hairpin%20transfer. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hairpin transfer,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hairpin%20transfer.

Source: hairpin transfer on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.