{"id":168990,"date":"2023-08-03T20:24:44","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T01:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/dna-tilts-and-stretches-underlie-differences-in-mutation-rates-across-genomes"},"modified":"2023-08-03T20:24:44","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T01:24:44","slug":"dna-tilts-and-stretches-underlie-differences-in-mutation-rates-across-genomes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/dna-tilts-and-stretches-underlie-differences-in-mutation-rates-across-genomes","title":{"rendered":"DNA tilts and stretches underlie differences in mutation rates across genomes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/dna-tilts-and-stretches-underlie-differences-in-mutation-rates-across-genomes2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Each cell in the body stores its genetic information in DNA in a stable and protected form that is readily accessible for the cell to carry on its activities. Nevertheless, mutations\u2014changes in genetic information\u2014occur throughout the human genome and can have a powerful influence on human health and evolution.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur team is interested in a classical question about mutation\u2014why do <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/mutation+rates\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">mutation rates<\/a> in the genome vary so tremendously from one DNA location to another? We just do not have a clear understanding of why this occurs,\u201d said Dr. Md. Abul Hassan Samee, assistant professor of integrative physiology at Baylor College of Medicine and corresponding author of the work.<\/p>\n<p>Previous studies have shown that the DNA sequences flanking a mutated position\u2014the sequence context\u2014play a strong role in the mutation rate. \u201cBut this explanation still leaves unanswered questions,\u201d Samee said. \u201cFor example, one type of mutation occurs frequently in a specific sequence context while a different type of mutation occurs infrequently in that same sequence context. So, we think that a different mechanism could explain how mutation rates vary in the genome. We know that each building block or base that makes up a DNA sequence has its own 3D chemical shape. We proposed, therefore, that there is a connection between DNA shape and <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/mutations\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">mutations<\/a> rates, and this paper shows that our idea was correct.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each cell in the body stores its genetic information in DNA in a stable and protected form that is readily accessible for the cell to carry on its activities. Nevertheless, mutations\u2014changes in genetic information\u2014occur throughout the human genome and can have a powerful influence on human health and evolution. \u201cOur team is interested in a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19,385,412,1495],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry","category-evolution","category-genetics","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}