It is, rather, the bits of kits themselves that are susceptible to mutation, to a versatility discovered by chance.
There has been no mutation to a human-to-human form, and the occasional human case is due to proximity, not the sign of a pending mutation.
In this case, Dr. Pollin said, she and her colleagues traced the apoC-III mutation to a member of the Amish community who was born in the 18th century.
Dr. Luo and his colleagues suggest that a mutation to a developmental timing gene responsible for this late-stage disengagement might have essentially locked Maotherium's ears into a permanent embryonic state, just as can happen with rare human craniofacial disorders like Treacher Collins syndrome.
First, when a new copy of copia inserts itself into a fly's genetic material, it may cause a deleterious mutation to a previously healthy gene (hence all the copia-related mutations detected by geneticists).
Mapping a novel mutation to a well defined chromosomal region is an important step in genetic analysis.
Evolution is achieved by applying analogies of natural genetic operations (reproduction, crossover, mutation) to a population of candidate algorithms (the model space ).
Let us say, as supposedly happened in the extended royal family of Europe, there was a mutation to a gene responsible for hemophilia.
The most common type of the disease, hemophilia A, accounts for about 80% of hemophilia cases and is caused by a mutation to a gene called F8, which encodes a protein involved in blood clotting.
By 2011, a team of researchers led by Ilik Saccheri, an ecological geneticist at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, had narrowed down the likely location of the mutation to a single chunk of chromosome.
HD is caused by a mutation to a gene called HTT that triggers the degeneration of neurons in the striatum and the cortex, leading to involuntary muscle movements and mental difficulties.
