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

... with 22.3% under the age of 18, 6.7% from 18 to 24, 28.0% from 25 to 44, 25.8% from 45 to 64, and 17.2% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 41 years. For ...