Which of the Following is MOST Likely to Result in a Nonfunctional

Question

Which of the following is MOST likely to result in a nonfunctional polypeptide?
A)a silent mutation
B)a missense mutation
C)a nonsense mutation
D)a transition mutation
E)Silent and missense mutations are the most likely to result in a nonfunctional polypeptide.

Accepted Answer

A nonsense mutation introduces a premature stop codon, resulting in a truncated protein that is likely to be nonfunctional. Silent mutations do not change the amino acid sequence and missense mutations may or may not result in a nonfunctional protein depending on the location and nature of the amino acid change. Transition mutations are a type of point mutation where one purine is replaced by another purine or one pyrimidine is replaced by another pyrimidine, and their effect on polypeptide function cannot be predicted without further analysis.