A moron, in the context of bacteriophage genetics, is an extra gene in a prophage genome without a function in the phage's lysogenic cycle.[1] These genes may code for products beneficial to the phage's bacterial host, as with the example of gp15 of phage HK97 serving as a superinfection exclusion protein. The term moron comes from the notion that the additional genes mean that these bacteriophage genomes have "more on" them.[2]
Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moron (bacteriophage).
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