back mutation

A reversal process whereby a gene or other nucleotide sequence that has undergone mutation returns to its previous state.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

back mutation

(Genetics) genetics the reversion of a mutant to the original phenotype

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

References in periodicals archive

Since this class is unlikely to be recreated by back mutation, the "ratchet" clicks one notch.

The maintenance of sex by parasitism and mutation: accumulation under epistatic fitness functions

However, in a large sexual population, a low frequency of beneficial, compensatory, or back mutation may be adequate to prevent the eventual entry into a mutational meltdown.

Mutational meltdowns in sexual populations

Each locus mutates from a wild-type to a deleterious allele at rate [Mu]; back mutation is assumed to be negligible.

Deleterious mutation and the evolution of genetic life cycles

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