"Functional significance" refers to the importance or value that something has in terms of its purpose or use. It is a way of determining how meaningful or useful something is based on its role or function in a particular context. Full definition
«We hypothesized that changes in the environment and lifestyle reassign functional significance of existing polymorphisms, turning some of them into risk - associated and others into disease protective,» Gorlov said. (sciencedaily.com)
Combined with behavioral data from past research and information about subcortical targets, these interconnections imply remarkable functional significance for the subnetworks. (sciencedaily.com)
The researchers then statistically plotted the genetic distances between the groups based on 326 genomic markers — stretches of DNA with no known functional significance — that are known to vary among people whose ancestors came from different parts of the world. (sciencemag.org)