Neutral mutations are changes in DNA sequence that are neither beneficial nor detrimental to the ability of an organism to survive and reproduce. In population genetics, mutations in which natural selection does not affect the spread of the mutation in a species are termed neutral mutations. Neutral mutations that are inheritable and not linked to any genes under selection will be lost or will replace all other alleles of the gene. That loss or fixation of the gene proceeds based on random sampling known as genetic drift. A neutral mutation that is in linkage disequilibrium with other alleles that are under selection may proceed to loss or fixation via genetic hitchhiking and/or background selection.
While many mutations in a genome may decrease an organism’s ability to survive and reproduce, also known as fitness, those mutations are selected against and are not passed on to future generations. The most commonly-observed mutations that are detectable as variation in the genetic makeup of organisms and populations appear to have no visible effect on the fitness of individuals and are therefore neutral. The identification and study of neutral mutations has led to the development of the neutral theory of molecular evolution, which is an important and often-controversial theory that proposes that most molecular variation within and among species is essentially neutral and not acted on by selection. Neutral mutations are also the basis for using molecular clocks to identify such evolutionary events as speciation and adaptive or evolutionary radiations.
genetics, mutations in which natural selection does not affect the spread of the mutation in a species are termed neutralmutations. Neutralmutations that...
butterflies with this mutation may form a larger percentage of the population.[citation needed] Neutralmutations are defined as mutations whose effects do...
level. A neutralmutation is one that does not affect an organism's ability to survive and reproduce. The neutral theory assumes that most mutations that...
Silent mutations are mutations in DNA that do not have an observable effect on the organism's phenotype. They are a specific type of neutralmutation. The...
single type of mutation; there are many different types of mutations. Mutation rates are given for specific classes of mutations. Point mutations are a class...
the neutral theory of molecular evolution. In this view, many mutations are deleterious and so never observed, and most of the remainder are neutral, i...
on neutralmutations. In the 1990s, constructive neutral evolution was proposed which seeks to explain how complex systems emerge through neutral transitions...
fact that not all mutations are either so deleterious such that they can be ignored, or else neutral. Slightly deleterious mutations are reliably purged...
A point mutation is a genetic mutation where a single nucleotide base is changed, inserted or deleted from a DNA or RNA sequence of an organism's genome...
that factor. In this theory, every evolutionary event, mutation, and gene polymorphism (neutral differences in phenotype or genotype) would have to be...
neutralmutation hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, if substitutions are due to the random fixation of selectively neutral or nearly neutral mutations...
take on separate functions. Subfunctionalization is a neutralmutation process of constructive neutral evolution; meaning that no new adaptations are formed...
requiring neutral evolution or high mutation rates. Several studies report that the mutations implicated in adaptation reflect common mutation biases though...
equated to the mean fixation time of a neutralmutation. This is only due to the small population that mutation is affecting, where the time for fixation...
organism. When a nonsense mutation is neutral, it does not provide benefits or harm. These occur when the effects of the mutation are unnoticed. In other...
In genetics, a missense mutation is a point mutation in which a single nucleotide change results in a codon that codes for a different amino acid. It is...
neutralmutations (i.e. mutations with no effect on fitness) in a new individual be μ {\displaystyle \mu } . The probability that this new mutation will...
when a previously neutralmutation that was present in a population becomes beneficial because of an environmental change. Such a mutation may be present...
theoretical and empirical results have established that mutational tendencies can influence both neutral and adaptive evolution via bias in the introduction...
Mutationism is one of several alternatives to evolution by natural selection that have existed both before and after the publication of Charles Darwin's...
alleles that are neutral. A neutralmutation is one that does not affect an organism's ability to survive and reproduce. The neutral theory allows for...
a synonymous one. When a synonymous or silent mutation occurs, the change is often assumed to be neutral, meaning that it does not affect the fitness of...
is a measure of the "population mutation rate" (the product of the effective population size and the neutralmutation rate) from the observed nucleotide...
oxidative phosphorylation. A neutral petite produces all wild type progeny when crossed with wild type. petite mutations can be induced using a variety...
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