Question

You are trying to determine the cause of Albinism in Gorillas. You begin by isolating the gene for skin pigment in a normal gorilla (sample 1) and in an albino gorilla (sample 2). You compare them to see what is different. Sample 1: ATTACAGTACTGGCA Sample 2: ATTACAATACTGGGCALooking at the sequences carefully you determine it is a __________ mutation.A. SubstitutionB. InversionC. InsertionD. Deletion

Answer 1

Here we are comparing the DNA sequence of the gene for skin pigment in a normal gorilla (sample 1) and an albino gorilla (sample 2).

The sequences are the following:

Sample 1

ATT ACA GTA CTG GCA

Sample 2

ATT ACA ATA CTG GGC A

We can see that the sequences have different lengths, sample 1 has a length of 15 base pairs (bp), while sample 2 has 16 bp. This means there is an extra nucleotide, so this is an insertion mutation.

This means the correct answer is C. Insertion