The Atacama Desert, a 1000km stretch of parched wasteland, separates it from Peru to the north. And to the west, only a few islands dotted in the Pacific Ocean break the waves that roll onto Chileâs coast from Australasia.
What is a mutation? A mutation is a change that occurs in our DNA sequence, either due to mistakes when the DNA is copied or as the result of environmental factors such as UV light and cigarette smoke.
Mutation is a change in the nucleotide sequence of a gene or a chromosome. Based on the effect of mutation on the gene structure, mutations may be: (1) small-scale mutations or (2) large scale mutations. Small-scale mutations are a type of mutation where one or few nucleotides of a gene are affected. They are further classified as follows: (1) substitution mutations, (2) insertion mutations, and (3) deletion mutations. Insertion mutations are a type of mutation wherein one or more nucleotide base pairs are inserted to a chromosome or a DNA sequence.