scripton

English

Etymology

script +‎ -on

Noun

scripton (plural scriptons)

1. (molecular biology) A segment of DNA or RNA that is under the control of a single autonomous promotor. A single scripton may encode multiple cistrons involving separate terminators.
   • 1983, Klaus Bellmann, Molecular genetic information systems: modelling and simulation, page 86:

     Approximately by 10-15 min after infection, the protein tof turns on the transcription of the scripton L2.

   • 2013, John T. Lett, Howard Adler, Advances in Radiation Biology - Volume 6, →ISBN, page 80:

     In the biological dose range, the major effects of UV irradiation on transcription are results of and are in direct correlation to the residual scripton length.

   • 2016, Oddvar F. Nygaard, Howard I. Adler, Warren K. Sinclair, Radiation Research: Biomedical, Chemical, and Physical Perspectives, →ISBN:

     That segment of DNA, which is bounded on the codogenic strand by a promotor and in the 5' direction from the promotor by a terminator, defines a scripton. A scripton beginning with a given promotor may vary in length through activation or inactivation of differently located terminators.

2. An unbroken sequence of textons within a hypertext or other dynamic text as it appears to the reader.
   • 1997, Espen J. Aarseth, Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature, →ISBN, page 154:

     If you manage to pick it up, you might read "You steal the lamp. Unfortunately, it is just a piece of useless junk./Taken." (If there is no message programed by the lamp's maker, you will just see the scripton "Taken.") Other players with a character in the same room might see a scripton saying "Godot picks up the lamp but realizes it is of little use." If the object is locked in place, however, you might get an error scripton saying "You try to steal the lamp, but it won't budge. Suddenly you hear alarms go off all over the building!" The other players present might get the message "Godot sneaks up on the lamp, but is too clumsy to steal it."

   • 2012, Arno Scharl, Evolutionary Web Development, →ISBN, page 22:

     The reader has the choice to read the whole scripton or only parts of it before following a link. As a consequence, scriptons are not necessarily identical to what readers actually read, but what an ideal reader would read by strictly following the linear structure of the textual output.

   • 2012, Markku Eskelinen, Cybertext Poetics: The Critical Landscape of New Media Literary Theory, →ISBN:

     First of all, reading the whole text is the strongest literary convention, but as was implicit in the earlier discussion, it can now mean at least four slightly different things: reading every texton and scripton, reading every texton, reading every scripton, and taking every given path through the text (i.e. exhausting the variety of paths).