In: Biology
What is the difference between a silent mutation, point mutation and a missense mutation?
Ans: Point mutation: This type of mutation is caused because of a single nucleotide base change.
Following are the two possible reasons for the point mutations:
There are 2 types of point mutation on the basis of nature of base change:
Transition: When purine ( adenine and guanine) is substituted by purine and pyrimidine with a pyrimidine. This is the most common type of point mutation.
Transversion: When purine is substituted with pyrimidine ( cytosine and thymine) or vice versa. This is the less common type of point mutation.
Missense mutation and silent mutation are the effects of point mutation.
Missense mutation: It is basically a point mutation in which change in single nucleotide will change the codon thus different amino acid will be coded.
Silent mutation: It is again a point mutation in which change in single nucleotide will change the codon but still the altered codon, code for the same amino acid so the effect of mutation is not observed that is why it is called a silent mutation.
The explanation to this is the wobble hypothesis according to which different codons may code the same amino acid.
please find the image below to understand this better.