The Mechanism Behind Slipped-Strand Mispairing is That

Question

The mechanism behind slipped-strand mispairing is that
A) short repeats allow for slippage of the RNA polymerase during transcription of the affected genes.
B) short repeats allow for slippage of DNA polymerase during replication, which leads to an out-of-frame reading sequence.
C) an invertible promoter slips into different reading frames.
D) the genes coding for lipopolysaccharide in Gram-negative bacteria can be slipped in and out of frame.
E) short repeats slip and turn genes off, but they can never be turned back on.

Accepted Answer

Slipped-strand mispairing refers to a mechanism where short repeating sequences in DNA can cause DNA polymerase to slip during the replication process, resulting in either an insertion or deletion of a repeat unit. This can cause a frameshift mutation, leading to an out-of-frame reading sequence that often results in a nonfunctional protein.