What is Mutation ?

(Know your health with Dr RK Mahapatra )

We all need oxygen . But how does this oxygen reach every cell of our body ?

The biggest transport system in nature.

Inside our body, sleek red round things called RBCs collect this oxygen from our lung and supply it to every nook and corner of our body. Without this supply of oxygen, no cell can survive beyond 4 minutes.

RBC is a red polythene wrapped around a scaffolding called Hemoglobin. The enchanting red dome of each RBC stands on four protein pillars- the four Globin chains of the hemoglobin.

The building block of these Globin chains are a long line of amino acids in a specific order. Code for them is stored as combinations of 4 alphabets ( A,T,G,C) in our Gene.

Here is the chink.

Even a single spelling mistake of this code can cause all the RBCs of the child to collapse and die. That is the Sickle cell Anemia.

Linus Pauling at Caltech found that if only one letter (among billion) A is substituted by T at the #6 position of one of our genes, the normal hemoglobin starts clumping. These clumped RBCs not only fail to carry oxygen, they die early and can clog the spleen and all causing sever pain. The condition is known as Sickle Cell Anemia. And the child is destined to suffer a painful pathetic journey for the rest of his life.

In medicine, this is an example of point mutation.

( Linus Pauling has won two undivided Nobel prizes )