1. A genetic interaction in which one gene suppresses or masks the expression of another gene at a different locus.
Usage: genetics; technical term

Examples

• Epistasy occurs when the dominant allele at one locus prevents the expression of alleles at another locus.
• In fruit flies, epistasy can determine eye color by masking the effects of other color genes.
• The student studied epistasy to understand how genes interact in complex inheritance patterns.
• Epistasy is an important concept in population genetics and evolutionary biology.
• Researchers identified epistasy as the reason the expected phenotypic ratio did not appear in the offspring.