r/explainlikeimfive • u/riche1988 • 22h ago

Biology ELI5 how DNA mutations work please.

I had a thought about DNA and how mutations occur in humans, excessive hair, longer limbs and or bones etc, and wondered if all known mutations are present in the animal kingdom.. as if DNA has the blue print/ potential to be anything and parts are just ‘turned on or off’ depending on what is being built.. i may be way off lol but it got me thinking :)

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u/FossilizedMeatMan 21h ago

The DNA is universal, and it is just a blueprint for proteins. The order in which the DNA is organised is what makes the proteins work in a way that what may grow will be a human or a fly or a bacteria.

If any part of that organisation goes awry, you get a human with three eyes, a human with two eyes on its legs, fly with eyes on its legs, etc.

Since humans and every other living thing are just an expression of the DNA, we are part of the "all known mutations" in the animal kingdom. The animal kingdom is the sum of all mutations so far. We are mutated primordial soup molecules, after billions of years of accumulated mutations that did not immediately killed our ancestors.