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Spontaneous Mutations definitions

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  • Spontaneous Mutation
    Genetic alteration arising naturally without external influence, often due to replication errors or intrinsic DNA instability.
  • Fluctuation Test
    Experimental approach demonstrating that genetic changes occur randomly, not as a direct response to environmental factors.
  • Bacteriophage
    Virus that infects bacterial cells, often used in experiments to study bacterial resistance mechanisms.
  • Lysis
    Destruction or bursting of a cell, typically caused by viral infection, resulting in cell death.
  • DNA Replication
    Process by which genetic material is copied, during which errors can introduce genetic changes.
  • DNA Polymerase
    Enzyme responsible for synthesizing new DNA strands, occasionally introducing mistakes that lead to mutations.
  • Tautomeric Shift
    Reversible chemical change in DNA bases, altering hydrogen bonding and potentially causing mispairing during replication.
  • Trinucleotide Repeat
    Sequence motif where three nucleotides are repeated consecutively, with expansions linked to certain genetic disorders.
  • Fragile X Syndrome
    Genetic disorder caused by excessive CGG repeats, leading to intellectual disability and associated with spontaneous mutation.
  • Strand Slippage
    Replication error where DNA strands misalign, resulting in insertion or deletion of repeat sequences.
  • Indel
    Genetic event involving insertion or deletion of bases, often arising from replication errors.
  • Depurination
    Loss of a purine base from DNA, creating an abasic site that can lead to mutations if unrepaired.
  • Deamination
    Chemical alteration where an amino group is removed from a DNA base, potentially causing base mispairing.
  • Transition
    Point mutation where a purine is substituted for another purine or a pyrimidine for another pyrimidine.
  • Transversion
    Point mutation involving substitution of a purine for a pyrimidine or vice versa, altering DNA sequence.