From the greek 'on the same string', it is used in
genetics to refer to the phenomenon that
genes in one
organism can be in the same order as those in another. For example, if the genes are A, B and C and they are in the order ABC on the
genome in
humans they might also be ABC in the
mouse.
Why is this useful? Well if you know the immediate neighbours of a gene in the mouse, you can guess that they will be the same in a human. So what, you ask? My, you are inquisitive today. This means information from a model organism can be transferred to tell you about human disease.