one-gene-one-polypeptide hypothesis

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one-gene-one-polypeptide hypothesis The hypothesis that a large class of structural genes exists in which each gene encodes a single polypeptide, which may function either independently or as a subunit of a more complex protein. Originally it was thought that each gene encoded the whole of a single enzyme, but it has since been found that some enzymes and other proteins derive from more than one polypeptide and hence from more than one gene.