Questions tagged [mutations]
A change in an organism's genomic sequence.
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How to calculate the probability that a mutation occurred?
According to the internet, there is a 7% chance that two brown-eyed parents will have a green-eyed child. However, Dominance says that it is impossible for this to happen. Is the internet correct? If ...
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Are the kind of mutations different in an antibiotic setting than they are in a non antibiotic setting?
Hy everyone!
I'm looking for experiments that deal with the kind of mutations that arise in antibiotic environment, as opposed to non antibiotic environment. As far as I understand, AB (anti biotic) ...
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Are SNPs or SSR copy number variation mutations more prominent?
I'm trying to get a sense of the dominant way that mutations occur. I have seen various numbers which seem at least at first glance to conflict, and I was curious if anyone had clarification on this.
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Saturated Mutagenesis Screening
I am hoping to mutate the active site of the enzyme I am researching that has 5 residues in proximity with the substrate. I am wondering how many colonies I'll have to assess to theoretically sample ...
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How difficult is it to adapt an existing vaccine to a virus variant?
There is (at least in France) an ongoing discussion about the Astra-Zeneca vaccine which is perceived as "outdated" because of the prevalence of new variants (the vaccine was designed based ...
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124 views
DNA mutations in humans are generally bad, but why to they make viruses stronger?
When I read about DNA mutations in humans, the mutations are generally bad.
When I read about mutations in viruses such as the recent emerging strains of COVID-19, however, it seems to be good for the ...
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Mutation rate breakdown by original and mutated nucleotide for Coronaviridae
In a discussion of the mutations S:Q677H and S:Q677P in SARS-CoV-2 it was mentioned that the mutations leading to this result are "against the tendency" of preferred mutations on the ...
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Why are adenoviral vector vaccines safe in terms of insertion mutagenesis due to genome integration and E4 region's proteins effects?
Disclaimer: I'm neither a genetics professional nor an anti-vax fanatic, I just tried to compare COVID-19 vaccine types currently available on the market and got some questions that I'd like to answer ...
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89 views
Does a critical mass of infected individuals exist after which mutations will overtake vaccination attempts?
As we know, all organisms have a probability to undergo mutations when they replicate. For every infected individual with the Covid-19 their bodies are environments in which the SARS-CoV-2 may mutate ...
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60 views
Is there an example of a new species through mutation breeding? [duplicate]
Is there a demonstrable species that went through mutation breeding and through successive generations it drifted so far away from its initial parent species that it can't breed with them anymore? (I ...
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5answers
480 views
Is it plausible that strict lockdowns made it more likely for the new variant of COVID to have emerged?
My idea is that strict lockdowns put greater evolutionary pressure on the coronavirus by restricting oppurtunities to be transmitted, meaning that a faster-spreading variant had much less competition.
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What is the probability of virus undergoing a specific dangerous mutation? [closed]
Non-biologist here so apologies if the question is violating too many of the community standards for asking a question in the forum.
What got me thinking was imagining how much more terrifying the ...
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What is the difference between mutation per base pair and mutation per genome? [closed]
Isn't genome size considered to be the number of base pairs present in DNA? So what is the difference between the mutation per base pair and mutation per genome? Are they similar or different?
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Coronavirus mutation: bad luck or a consequence of vaccination?
I would like to know whether a mutation within a virus (such as the new coronavirus mutation that appeared in England source) is a consequence of the vaccination program - maybe because it is ...
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2answers
137 views
How can mutation of viruses lead to loss of fit to antibodies without loss of fit to antigen of cells they infect?
Viruses are known to mutate, thereby escaping immune cells and evading vaccination. Given that there is one and the same specificity of the key to both the receptor on the infected cell causing the ...
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What is the minimum-volume : neutral-volume : maximum-volume of the molecules that make up the SARS-Cov-2 virus-fusion machine?
The "neutral-volume" is the over-lapping volume between minimum-volume & maximum-volume of the molecules that make up the SARS-Cov-2-fusion machine. Those identifying potential ...
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1answer
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Can the mutation rate vary for individuals of the same species, growing in similar environments?
Suppose we consider several populations who originally inherited their genome from the same ancestor, and that we put for a few thousands generations in similar environments.
Could the mutation rate ...
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For which animals, can we make iPS-derived reproductive chimeras?
If I'm right, there are two types of pluripotent stem cells: naïve and prime. The naïve form is more undifferentiated.
It would seem to me that it would be easier to make genetically engineered ...
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Is there something amounting to “check sums” in genetic code?
Humans use checksums for many different applications in informational processes.
Genetic code is used as a "program" to synthesize proteins, so it could (I'm a layman when it comes to ...
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1answer
34 views
Could a mutation on neutral part of genome become deleterious?
I know that silent mutations are neutral because they dont affect function of the protein/gene, and a missense mutation would. But lets say both occur on a neutral portion, could one or the other ...
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1answer
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A mutation question from the Indian National Biology Olympiad
DNA was isolated from wild type (Gal+) and mutant (Gal-) E. coli cells and separated by density gradient centrifugation technique. DNA from Gal- strain acquired a lower position. This indicates that ...
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Would an enrichment of pyrimidine runs of two of more nucleotides be an early indicator of DNA to be damaged?
I am analysing two categories of protein coding genes comparing their relative characteristics. What I am observing is that one of these, in comparison to the other, is enriched in pyrimidine runs (...
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Estimate mutation rate in UVC treated cells
I am wondering how to get a coarse estimate of the number of mutation I obtain doing UVC treatment on eukaryotic cells (microalgae) starting from information such as the survival rate, genome size, ...
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1answer
70 views
At what point during an organism’s lifespan do mutations occur?
I’m a software developer and I’m implementing something called a Genetic Algorithm. I would like some input on when during an organism’s lifespan mutations occur.
Genes mutate throughout the lifetime ...
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When cancer is detectable, how many sub-clones are there at that stage?
I have read somewhere that cancer is detectable when the number of cells reaches $10^7 - 10^9$, which probably varies according to the specific tumor. At this early stage, what is the expected number ...
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47 views
Are probabilities of mutations symmetric?
For the premise of this quiestion let's assume that there is an allele A and an allele B. The allele A has a probability P to mutate into the allele B in the given timeframe.
Is it also true that the ...
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1answer
132 views
Is natural selection actually random?
In the Theory of Evolution, two main factors take place:
One is random, which are the different mutations that organisms' DNA suffer. This process adds genetic variability to a given population.
The ...
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How do the CFTR alleles interact within an individual with Cystic Fibrosis when mutations of different classes are present?
So mutations in CF are classified by the severity of the impact on the production of the CFTR.
But an individual may have two different CFTR mutations.
I assume that the least severe mutation of the ...
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1answer
49 views
De novo mutation selectivity
I was recently reading about genetic diseases and came to understand that many of them are caused by de novo mutations in the prezygotic or early embryonic stages of the life cycle of the organism. ...
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gene inversion and DNA directionality
The directionality of the DNA goes from the 3-prime end to the 5-prime end.
Thus, the inversion of a gene would connect a 5-prime to a 5-prime. How could that be?
Maybe inverting a gene also ...
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1answer
76 views
Are there known chains of beneficial mutations?
Are there known examples of chains of beneficial mutations?
What I mean by that is a mutation that leads to a series of mutations occurring after each other over a relatively short period of time ...
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1answer
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Can mutation take place in G1 and G2 phases during the cell cycle?
We know that the DNA replicates during the S phase in Interphase. There it might undergo a number of mutations. We also know that the forward half strands are more susceptible to undergoing a mutation ...
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Why the major gene model can be supported by finding de novo mutations in affected cases?
I found a sentence which I can't fully understand in a publication on the genetics of autism.
The unified major gene model is supported by the significant increase
in damaging de novo mutations ...
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2answers
44 views
Exact definition of homoplasy?
I am a poor mathematician looking into the Sars-Cov-2 genome. Is there a proper definition of the word homoplasy? Is it just mutations that happened independently or does there have to be indications ...
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1answer
89 views
Technical term for a mutation that only occurs after a preceding one
Consider a hypothetical population of 1000 organisms.
(a) 300 of these 1000 have a T to G substitution at a specific position 1.
(b) 200 of these 1000 have an A to T substitution at a second ...
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1answer
37 views
How can a homozygous mutation, considered pathogenic, occur on a gene such as HFE without the disease developing?
What happens when you have a homozygous mutation on a gene (eg. a swapped base), that is considered pathogenic, but without developing the disease?
It it were a heterozygous mutation I would get it, ...
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Radiation mutation breeding in plant seeds: practical aspects
I did read some seed irradiation papers and they all use Gy as unit of measure, however I have never seen seed weights reported.
How did they calculate that, since Gy is J/kg?
Differencies aside ...
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33 views
Is it possible to force Sars-Cov-2 virus to mutate?
The title may definitely be a stupid question since I have no background in biology. I would like to know if the coronaviruses or any other can be manipulated artificially so that they stop spreading ...
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1answer
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Genetic mutations in plants
I am trying to plant some trees which are usually native to colder climates into Subtropical climate, is there any possibility that if i plant these 20 trees saplings in winters they will grow to be a ...
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1answer
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What is the probablity that SARS-CoV-2 will mutate? [closed]
In many epidemic/pandemic situations, a lot of time the pathogen in question will mutate. For reference, this is the definition of mutation taken from Wiki:-
A mutation is an alteration in the ...
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2answers
218 views
What's the difference between mutation and substitution rates?
The Wikipedia section on substitution rates (shown below) isn't clear to me. What's the precise definition and difference between mutation and substitution rates, and how do they relate to each other?
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1answer
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Viral mutation rates and replication
TL;DR
What's the relationship between the following?
Mutation rates (expressed as "mutations per year" for a virus like e.g. COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). E.g. this article mentions "The rate ...
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1answer
322 views
Is Covid-19 likely to mutate into a deadlier form?
When the Spanish influenza hit in 1918, it struck in two waves. The first wave was typical for a flu virus, targetting mainly elderly people, but the second wave was far deadlier and killed far more ...
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1answer
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If mutations are random, why do antibiotics 'cause' resistance?
Full disclosure: I am not a biologist and this is more of a general question about understanding antibiotic resistance of bacteria.
We are always told that careless antibiotics use is the cause of ...
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1answer
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Poor Hygiene vs. Cross-species transmission?
Did a poor hygiene at wet Chinese markets add anything to equation to trigger critical mutation of COVID-19 helping it to transmit the virus from bats/pangolins to humans?
If not, would it spread to ...
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1answer
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How many times has SARS-CoV-2 mutated?
According to
Coronavirus has mutated at least once
The novel coronavirus that has infected thousands of people across the
world may have mutated at least once — meaning there may be two
...
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1answer
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Whether de novo mutation can be inherited or not?
Think about the following scenario: A child is diagnosed as having long QT syndrome, an autosomal dominant disease. However, neither of his parents is affected. This may be due to a new mutation in ...
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2answers
207 views
Can Coronaviridae mutate into something as dangerous as Flioviridae? [closed]
Can coronaviruses mutate to an extent to get as dangerous as fliovirusues such as Marburg viruses, Ravn or Ebola Zaire?
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1answer
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Is the frequency at which a species mutate affected by natural selection? [duplicate]
As per natural selection, is it safe to assume that some species will have it genetically encoded so that they produce a certain 'perfect' rate of mutation so that they can adapt to an environment ...
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3answers
2k views
Are all carcinogens mutagens?
I assume that all carcinogens must be mutagens, but I've read that this is not the case. However, I can't find any good examples or an explanation of why it is not the case.
How can a non-mutagenic ...
