• Question: What is the strangest DNA mutation that you have seen??

    Asked by 07heaann to Ollie on 22 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Ollie Russell

      Ollie Russell answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      I have seen things called duplications. This is where the entire gene is repeated so you basically get twice as much of the protein made. I have also seen things where someone has a really high amount of mutated DNA, but they seem fine. This is really weird and just shows that we are a long way off from knowing what is going on in the cell!

Comments

  • Photo: Andy

    Andy commented on :

    Some of the ones you get in fruit flies can be really weird. I’ve always liked ‘Antennapedia’. It’s a problem in the instructions that tells the fly how to develop properly, so things get shited around. It ends up growing legs on its head where the anntenae should be.

    Here’s a pic. Don’t click if you don’t like seeing highly magnified pictures of flies. 😉