Transition (genetics)

For other uses, see Transition.

Illustration of a transition: each of the 4 nucleotide changes between purines or between pyrimidines (in blue). The 8 other changes are transversions (in red).

Transition, in genetics and molecular biology, refers to a point mutation that changes a purine nucleotide to another purine (A ↔ G), or a pyrimidine nucleotide to another pyrimidine (C ↔ T). Approximately two out of three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are transitions.

Transitions can be caused by oxidative deamination and tautomerization. Although there are twice as many possible transversions, transitions appear more often in genomes, possibly due to the molecular mechanisms that generate them. Transitions are more likely to be synonymous substitutions than transversions, as one observes in the codon table.

5-Methylcytosine is more prone to transition than unmethylated cytosine, due to spontaneous deamination. This mechanism is important because it dictates the rarity of CpG islands.

See also

• Transversion

External links

• Diagram at mun.ca