cytosine

English

Etymology

After German Cytosin, equivalent to Ancient Greek κύτος (kútos) + -ine. Cytosine was discovered and named by the German biochemists Albrecht Kossel and Albert Neumann in 1894 when it was hydrolyzed from calf thymus tissues.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪtəsiːn/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

cytosine (plural cytosines)

1. (biochemistry) A heterocyclic base, 4-aminopyrimidin-2(1H)-one, which pairs with guanine in DNA and RNA (by means of three hydrogen bonds).

   Hypernyms: nucleobase, pyrimidine

   Coordinate terms: adenine, guanine, thymine, uracil

   • 1997, Ian McEwan, Enduring Love, Vintage (1998), page 164:

     Then he found them, the substances that made up the four-letter alphabet in whose language all life is written — adenine and cytosine, guanine and thymine.

Derived terms

• arabinosylcytosine
• azacytosine
• cidofovir
• cytarabine
• cytosine arabinoside
• deoxycytosine
• fluorocytosine
• hydroxymethylcytosine
• methylcytosine
• polycytosine
• thiocytosine

 

Related terms

• cytidine
• cytidylate
• cytidylic acid

 

Translations

heterocyclic base, 4-aminopyrimidin-2(1H)-one, which pairs with guanine in DNA and RNA

• Catalan: citosina f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 胞嘧啶 (zh) (bāomìdìng)

• Czech: cytosin m
• Esperanto: citozino
• Finnish: sytosiini (fi)
• French: cytosine (fr) f
• Galician: citosina f
• German: Cytosin (de) n
• Hungarian: citozin
• Icelandic: sýtósín n, sýtosín n
• Irish: cíotóisín m
• Italian: citosina (it) f
• Japanese: シトシン (ja) (shitoshin)
• Polish: cytozyna f
• Portuguese: citosina f
• Russian: цитози́н (ru) m (citozín)
• Serbo-Croatian: citòzīn (sh) m
• Spanish: citosina f
• Turkish: sitozin (tr)