wildtype
n.— «“Our laboratory testing of the vCT using the BD ProbeTec System revealed that the vCT was as easily detected as the ’wildtype’ CT.” “Wildtype” is the term for the common circulating strain of an organism.» —“Variant Strain of Chlamydia May Go Undetected” in Baltimore, Maryland PR Newswire APr. 26, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Beyond marking direct speech, quotation marks serve a variety of functions. They can signal skepticism, provisional terminology, nonstandard usage, or emphasis when italics aren’t available. There’s no reason to mock hand-lettered signs for their...
Diamond dust, tapioca snow, and sugar icebergs — a 1955 glossary of arctic and subarctic terms describes the environment in ways that sound poetic. And a mom says her son is dating someone who’s non-binary. She supports their relationship, but...
I don’t know if this makes a difference, but this is very much a term of art, not slang or scientific vernacular. If I’m not mistaken, it goes back in genetics literature hundreds of years.