acrocentric

adj

1. (of a chromosome) Having the centromere very near to one end, and thus having a long arm, and a very short arm.

noun

1. A chromosome that has the centromere very near to one end, and thus has a long arm, and a very short arm.

   “This may be the result of misalignment, nonallelic gene conversion or other biological mechanisms that maintain large-scale homology between the short arms of the acrocentrics—a phenomenon that we have studied in an associated paper²².”