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skipped generation

A phenomenon of pedigrees in which a gene is transmitted from one affected person to another through a phenotypically unaffected person, as by recessivity (especially for x-linked traits), epistasis, variable expressivity, or absence of an environmental challenge such as a toxin. Except at a crass phenotypic level (e.g., clinical or commercial) this term becomes progressively less useful as the mechanisms are elucidated.