attenuation

Pronunciation: ă-ten′yū-ā′shŭn

Definition:

1. The act of attenuating.
2. Diminution of virulence in a strain of an organism, obtained through selection of variants that occur naturally or through experimental means.
3. Loss of energy of a beam of radiant, ultrasound, or other energy because of absorption, scattering, beam divergence, and other causes as the beam propagates through a medium.
4. Regulation of termination of transcription; involved in control of gene expression in specific tissues.

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