What type of mutation is caused by an insertion or deletion of a base and results in a change of the entire sequence after the point of insertion or deletion?
1 Answer
Jun 23, 2016
Frameshift mutation.
Explanation:
Three base pairs (codon) in RNA code for one specific amino acid. There is also a specific start codon (AUG) and three specific stop codons (UAA, UAG and UGA) so the cells knows where a gene/protein starts and where it ends.
With this information you can imagine that deleting a base pair changes the entire code / reading frame, this is called a frameshift mutation . This can have several effects:
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The wildtype is the RNA/ protein as it should be. When you delete one base pair, the reading frame shifts and suddenly it codes for completely different amino acids, this is called a missense mutation. It is also possible that the deletion causes a nonsense mutation, this happens when the mutated RNA codes for a stop codon.
