Speculate on how improved living conditions and medical ...

Question

Speculate on how improved living conditions and medical care in the developed nations might affect human mutation rates, both neutral and deleterious.

Accepted Answer

Welcome back. Here's our next problem, identify the incorrect statement about neutral mutations. Let's recall from our content, video what neutral mutations are and we'll just put up a definition here. And so a neutral mutation is a mutation that does not affect gene products or gene expression. So this is similar to but slightly different from a silent mutation. A silent mutation as a mutation to the D. N. A. Sequence that does not change the amino acid sequence of the protein. So as we know, sometimes multiple code is code for the same amino acid. If a mutation in your base pair doesn't change which amino acid is in that spot in the protein, you um don't cause a change in the amino acid sequence of the peptide. So that's a silent mutation. A neutral mutation doesn't affect the gene product so it doesn't affect amino acid sequence but it also doesn't express affect the gene expression. Um So even if it occurs and if it occurs in like a regulatory region or something like that, um you might see your mutation effect even if it doesn't change the code on it might affect the expression, the regulation of the gene. So with that in mind, let's look over our answer choices, noting that we do have choice D all of the above. So they might all be incorrect. And again we're looking for an incorrect statement um about neutral mutations. So we have a choice a it is neither beneficial nor harmful and this is correct. So market true. And so therefore not our answer. Um because a neutral mutation, since it doesn't affect the gene products doesn't affect gene expression, it doesn't cause any new benefits. It also doesn't cause any harm. So, as a correct statement, it's not our answer. And then therefore, we also know that Choice D all of the above can't be our answer. Since we already have one correct statement here, Choice B says it has no observable effect on the organism. And that is true. As we said, mutation does not affect gene products or expression. So you don't can't observe any effect on the organism. So not our answer. Since it's a correct statement. So we're down to Choice C. Which is it changes the sequence of amino acids. Well, that is incorrect. So Choice C is therefore answer. A neutral mutation, like a silent mutation does not change the amino acids amino acid sequence of the protein that is coded for. See you in the next video.

Speculate on how improved living conditions and medical care in the developed nations might affect human mutation rates, both neutral and deleterious.

Key Concepts

Mutation Rates

Natural Selection

Genetic Drift

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