Question

The rate of base pair substitutions (mutations) in exons is greater than the rate of mutation in introns for eukaryotic protein coding genes

Is this statement True or False? Please explain and show any work that led to this answer. Thanks!

Answer 1

Ans:- False. The rate of of base pair substitution in exon cannot be greater than the rate of substitution in introns. Because in eukaryotes introns are generally very large in size compared to exons. So, the probability of substitution in introns will be obviously higher in number compared to exons. We can understand this by using simple method. Suppose we have a exon consisting of 100 nucleotides long and intron which is 2000 nucleotides long. So, according to the probability of random base substitution happening inside the cell the chance of substitution will be higher in introns compared to exons. Because the number of nucleotides are are higher in introns compared to exons. Thus, we can finally conclude that base substitution will be higher in intron than exon.