Sequence Mutations
Mutations can also occur within a gene or other small region of sequence.
Some mutations can be harmless or have minor effects, while other mutations can have devastating effects. As an example, take the sentence (which is made of three letter words, similar to codons):
The fat cat saw the red dog
If we insert the letter 'x' before the f, the sentence will no loner have
the same meaning. In fact, it will be unreadable:
The xfa tca tsa wth ere ddo g
A similar effect will happen if we delete the f:
The atc ats awt her edd og
or if we translocate the 'e' in 'The' with the 'f' in 'fat':
Thf eat cat saw the red dog
Another example of deletion...
The cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene contains 250,000 base pairs. In the majority of cystic fibrosis patients, three base pairs are missing. This leads to the loss of a single amino acid from the 1,480 residues in the protein...and this change ultimately kills a person. more...
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