Encyclopedia > Mutagen

Article Content

Mutagen

A mutagen (Latin, roughly change maker) is an agent that changes the genetic information (usually DNA) of an organism and thus increases the number of mutations above the natural background level. Mutagens can be chemical compounds or radiation.

There are several methods to detect how mutagenic an agent is:

Ames test

See also : teratogenesis -- DNA repair[?] -- genetics

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!

Featured Article

East Hampton North, New York

... someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.47 and the average family size is 3.07. In the town the population is spread out with ...