What causes genes to mutate?

What causes genes to mutate?

•      Ionising radiation – X Rays, UV light

•      Chemicals –from cigarettes, plastic processing, pollutants,

•      Virus infection – papilloma virus, HBV, etc.

•      Hereditary predisposition – Some families are more susceptible to getting certain cancers. you can’t inherit cancer

Silent: If abase substitution occurs in the third position of the codon there is a good chance that a synonymous codon will be generated. Thus the amino acid sequence encoded by the gene is not changed and the mutation is said to be silent.

Missence: When base substitution results in the generation of a codon that specifies a different amino acid and hence leads to a different polypeptide sequence. Depending on the type of amino acid substitution the missense mutation is either conservative or non-conservative.

Nonsense: When a base substitution results in a stop codon ultimately truncating translation and most likely leading to a non-functional protein.

Aneuploidies- Is the presence of an abnormal number of chromosomes in a cell, for example a human cell having 45 or 47 chromosomes instead of the usual 46. It does not include a difference of one or more complete sets of chromosomes.

Mutated Cancer Genes
Oncogenes	Oncosuppressors
Genes that positively contribute to cancer, they need to be more active. They usually push proliferation, inhibit apoptosis, block differentiation, make stemness.	genes that need to be inactivated to contribute to cancer. They usually inhibit proliferation, induce apoptosis, induce differentiation

!!**REMEMBER TO STAY POSITIVE LIKE A PROTON**!!