Evolution Relies Upon ــــــــــــــــــ

Question

Evolution relies upon ــــــــــــــــــ.
A)mutations made in somatic cells only
B)mutations occurring in gametes
C)mutations that result in altered protein function of somatic cells
D)mutations in mRNA only

Accepted Answer

Evolution relies on mutations occurring in gametes, which are the cells that give rise to offspring and pass on genetic information to the next generation. Mutations in somatic cells, which make up the body of an organism, cannot be passed on to future generations and therefore cannot contribute to evolution. Mutations in mRNA only would also not contribute to evolution as they do not affect the DNA sequence of the genome. Mutations that result in altered protein function of somatic cells may have an effect on the individual organism, but unless they occur in gametes they will not contribute to evolutionary change.