Re: Clarification on the natural causes of mutation.


John Harshman wrote:
> Frank Sullivan wrote:
>
> > I understand that radioactivity can cause mutations, but what are the
> > other natural sources? Do nucleotides just spontaneously change do to
> > the random nature of quantum particles, or is there some chemical
> > reaction that occurs? Do some nucleotides just end up pairing up
> > incorrectly somehow?
>
> Spontaneous de-amination might fit your first speculation, or you might
> consider it to be the second. See
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deamination
>
> But it looks as if the majority of mutations are just incorrect
> pairings. The replication process has a proofreading step, but it's not
> perfect. This is one reason why most mutations seem to happen during
> replication.
>
> Any time DNA is uncoiled, and especially when it's unzipped, it becomes
> much more vulnerable to mutation from all sources. This happens during
> replication or transcription, mostly. So cells that replicate more often
> have more mutations, and genes that are expressed more often have more
> mutations.

Awesome, thanks for the information.

.

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