{"id":8500,"date":"2019-05-22T16:08:23","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/mutation_-biology\/"},"modified":"2019-05-22T16:08:23","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:08:23","slug":"mutation_-biology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/mutation_-biology\/","title":{"rendered":"Mutation (biology)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A term originally devised by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.britannica.com\/EBchecked\/topic\/633337\/Hugo-de-Vries\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.britannica.com\/EBchecked\/topic\/633337\/Hugo-de-Vries&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hugo M. de Vries<\/a> (1848-1935) in 1901, it refers to a random alteration in the arrangement or amount of genetic material in a cell that may cause it and all cells derived from it to differ in structure and function. &nbsp;An organism affected by a mutation is called a mutant. &nbsp;There are two general types of mutations:&nbsp;point mutations consisting of minor changes in the genetic material such a single-base pair substitutions in structural genes and macro mutations involving larger sections of chromosomes. &nbsp;There are five specific types of macro mutations as shown in the figure below. &nbsp;Mutations most often occur during DNA replication when so-called &#8216;copying errors&#8217; can arise. &nbsp;More often than not, mutations are lethal, but sometimes they can be advantageous given particular environmental circumstances in the sense of increasing the chances of survival and reproductive success.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\" class=\"\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"..\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/image083.png\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\" class=\"\">Five types of macro mutations<\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"adaptation\">Adaptation<\/a>, <a href=\"allele\">Allele<\/a>, <a href=\"biological_evolution\">Biological evolution<\/a>, <a href=\"chromosome\">Chromosome<\/a>, <a href=\"copying_errors\">Copying errors<\/a>, <a href=\"darwinism\">Darwinism<\/a>, <a href=\"dna_-deoxyribonucleic_acid-\">DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)<\/a>, <a href=\"evolutionary_biology\">Evolutionary biology<\/a>, <a href=\"evolutionary_developmental_biology\">Evolutionary developmental biology<\/a>, <a href=\"genetic_-or_dna-_recombination\">Genetic (or DNA) recombination<\/a>, <a href=\"haploinsufficiency\">Haploinsufficiency<\/a>, &#8216;Hopeful&#8217; monsters, <a href=\"huntington-s_disease_-or_chorea-\">Huntington&#8217;s disease (or chorea)<\/a>, <a href=\"hypomorphic_nervous_system\">Hypomorphic nervous system<\/a>, <a href=\"jacob-monod_operon_model\">Jacob-Monod operon model<\/a>, <a href=\"lactose_tolerance\">Lactose tolerance<\/a>, <a href=\"mecp2_gene\">MECP2 gene<\/a>, <a href=\"mosaicism\">Mosaicism<\/a>, <a href=\"mucins\">Mucins<\/a>, <a href=\"mutagens\">Mutagens<\/a>, <a href=\"mutant\">Mutant<\/a>, <a href=\"neo-darwinism\">Neo-Darwinism<\/a>, <a href=\"noggin\">Noggin<\/a>, <a href=\"oligogenic_mode_of_inheritance\">Oligogenic mode of inheritance<\/a>, <a href=\"phyletic_gradualism_and_punctuated_equilibrium\">Phyletic gradualism and punctuated equilibrium<\/a>, <a href=\"proteins\">Proteins<\/a>, <a href=\"speciation\">Speciation<\/a>, <a href=\"structural_genes\">Structural genes<\/a>, <a href=\"theory_of_molecular_evolution\">Theory of molecular evolution<\/a>, <a href=\"theory_of_natural_selection\">Theory of natural selection<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A term originally devised by Hugo M. de Vries (1848-1935) in 1901, it refers to a random alteration in the arrangement or amount of genetic material in a cell that may cause it and all cells derived from it to differ in structure and function. &nbsp;An organism affected by a mutation is called a mutant. &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/mutation_-biology\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Mutation (biology)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-8500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-glossary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}