Nonoxynol
Nonoxynol-9 is the most commonly encountered spermatocide in the United States. As with other spermatocides, it destroys spermatozoa; it kills sperm.
The nonoxynols, technically speaking, are nonionic surfactant [surface active] mixtures that vary in the number of repeating ethoxy groups. They are much used as detergents, emulsifiers, wetting and defoaming agents, etc.
Nonoxynol-9 has 9 repeating ethoxy groups. It is the active component of most vaginal foams and creams.
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- Nonpathogenic
Incapable of causing disease. For example, nonpathogenic E. coli are E. coli bacteria that do not cause disease, but instead live naturally in the large intestine.
- Nonpenetrant trait
A genetic trait (characteristic) that is present in the genome but does not manifest itself in the individual. By contrast, a penetrant trait is one that manifests itself. If, for example, if 100 people have a particular genetic trait but only 80 of them express it, the penetrance of that trait is 80%. The trait […]
- Nonrandom
Not by chance alone. Not in keeping with the process by which an outcome is determined solely by chance, for example, by a coin flip. The opposite of nonrandom is random.
- Nonseminoma
A type of testicular cancer that arises in specialized sex cells called germ cells that give rise to sperm. Nonseminomas include embryonal carcinoma, teratoma, choriocarcinoma, and yolk sac tumor.
- Nonsense mutation
A mutation (a change) in a base in the DNA that prematurely stops the translation (reading) of messenger RNA (mRNA) resulting in a polypeptide chain that ends prematurely and a protein product that is truncated (abbreviated) and incomplete and usually nonfunctional. The nonsense mutation converts a codon (a triplet of bases) that encodes an amino […]