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Mutations are rare, random changes in DNA. A human has 50% DNA from a mother and 50% from a father. These two half are nearly identical to the DNA given by the parents. In the 3,000,000,000 base pairs in a person's DNA there are only, on average, 150 mutations.

They happen because the DNA processes aren't perfect. Most mutations are small and relate to the insertion, deletion, or swapping of a single base pair. This can cause good, bad, or neutral changes.

Most mutations are neutral and have no effect on the organism because they happen in part of the DNA that doesn't code for a protein. However, when they happen in a coding section, they can change a single codon or even an entire section of codons.

A swap is a single base pair that gets changed. For example, let's take the section of DNA: ATGTGCATG.

Codons are sections of 3 base pairs that code for an animo acid, so from above we have: ATG TGC ATG. An example of a swap would result in ATG TGC A*CG, so only the last codon would be effected. This may not even change which amino acid the codon codes for because there are 64 different combinations and only 20 amino acids so some combinations code for the same thing.

An insertion or deletion are more drastic because they cause a shift. So, using the same DNA as before and modeling an insertion we get: GATGTGCATG. So our codons are now GAT GTG CAT. Each codon could potentially change rather than just one. Deletion works much the same way.
When mutation occurs, there can be damaged done on genes.

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9y ago

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