Mutations Flashcards
What are the most common SNPs
C to T (two thirds)
What are the most common mutations?
SNPs - single nucleotide polymorphisms
Are transitions or transversions more common?
Transitions
Why do mutations in the third position often not cause disease?
Triplet code is degenerate, often mutations in third position are silent substitution
What is a missense mutation?
One amino acid is substituted by another
Why might a silent mutation cause disease?
Disrupt splicing
What is a nonsense mutation?
Amino acid codon is replaced by a stop codon
What is a conservative missense mutation?
Some amino acids which have similar codons have similar properties, so substitution might be tolerated in non critical regions of the protein
What are PTCs?
Premature termination codons - due to frameshift
What is NMD?
Nonsense mediated decay - mRNA that has PTC is broken down, prevents faulty protein being produced.
What is the result of splice site mutations?
Skipping of exon, may lead to frameshift.
What base pairings are observed when a base undergoes tautomeric shift?
Rare C with common A (2 hydrogen bonds)
Rare G with common T (3 hydrogen bonds)
What is tautomeric shift?
Proton briefly changes position
What is slippage during replication?
Either newly synthesised strand loops out resulting in the insertion of a base, or the template strand loops out resulting in a base being skipped and a deletion
What is the affect of nitrous acid on nucleotides?
Replaces amino groups with keto groups
C > U
A > H (pairs with C - hypoxanthine)
G > X (pairs with C - xanthine)
What is the effect of EMS on DNA?
Ethyl methane sulphonate.
Removes purine rings - apurinic sites can be paired with any base