Lecture 7 - DNA repair and recombination Flashcards
Mutation
Heritable change in the DNA
Different types of mutations
Point mutation, insertion/deletion, inversion, reversion
Types of point mutations
Transition and transversion
Transition mutation
Purine –> purine or pyrimidine –> pyrimidine (less traumatic for the cell)
Transversion
Purine <–> pyrimidine
Do mutations always change the protein sequence?
No, but they can give rise to new phenotypes
- depends on where the mutation is and what it is
Information classes of mutations
Silent, missense, nonsense, and frame-shift
Silent mutation
Doesn’t change the aa sequence
Missense mutation
Changes an amino acid sequence to another
- doesn’t always have deleterious effects
- if the change is to the wobble position of a codon, the cell generally can compensate for it
Nonsense mutation
Changes the amino acid sequence to a stop codon (almost always deleterious)
Frame-shift mutation
Changes the open reading frame of the gene
Relationship between the protein sequence and the function of the protein
Proteins are tolerant to certain small changes
- many proteins that have the same function across species will have slightly different sequences
- wobble position changes will either result in no change to the aa placed or a change to an aa with similar properties
Chemical reactions that can induce spontaneous mutations
- tautomeric shifts that alter base-pairing properties (changes the pairing)
- oxidative deamination of bases (can change the identify of a base, most often C to U)
- formation of apurinic sites (no nucleotide present)
Sources of spontaneous mutations in bacteria
- chemical reactions
- DNA replication
How does the tautomeric shift of thymine result in a mutation?
TA pair to TG pair during DNA replication
1. thymine changes to the enol form
2. during replication, enol form of thymine pairs with guanine
3. enol thymine reverts to normal thymine –> TG pairing
Other examples of tautomeric shifts that result in mutations?
- AT –> AC due to rare imino form of adenine
- CG –> CA due to imino form of cytosine
- GC –> GT due to enol form of guanine
What is spontaneous deamination?
Water attacks amine groups on C and converts them to uracil
- result: accumulation of U in the DNA
How does depurination occur?
Water attacks purine and removes the base
- result: abasic site
Purines
Adenine and Guanine
Pyrimidines
Thymine and Cytosine
Chemical mutagens
- base analogs (ex: 2-aminopurine)
- base modifiers and alkylating agents
- intercalators
Electromagnetic mutagens
- ionization radiation (x-rays and gamma rays)
- UV radiation
How does ionization radiation cause mutations?
X-rays and gamma rays can interact with water to form free radical oxygen species
- free radicals cleave the phosphodiester backbone of DNA
How does UV radiation cause mutations?
Forms pyrimidine dimers that put strain on the DNA and prevent progress of the replisome