Mutation rate

Article summary

mutation rate is approximately 0.5 × 10 −9 per basepair per year. In genetics, the mutation rate is the frequency of new mutations in a single gene, nucleotide sequence, or organism over time. Mutation rates are not constant and are not limited to a single type of mutation; there are many different types of mutations. Mutation rates are given for specific classes of mutations. A point mutation is a change to a single base. Missense, nonsense, and synonymous substitution mutations are all examples of point mutations. The rate of these types of substitutions can be further subdivided into a mutation spectrum, which describes the influence of the genetic context on the mutation rate. There are several natural units of time for each of these rates, with rates being characterized either as mutations per base pair per cell division, per gene per generation, or genome per generation. The mutation rate of an organism is an evolved characteristic and is strongly influenced by the genetics of each organism, in addition to a strong influence from the environment. The upper and lower limits to which mutation rates can evolve is the subject of ongoing investigation. However, the mutation rate does vary over the genome. When the mutation rate in humans increases, certain health risks can occur, for example, cancer and other hereditary diseases.…

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