1. Explore

Environmental Factors

Environmental factors that cause mutations are called mutagens. They include different types of radiation and chemical substances.

For example, ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight often causes point mutations by changing one DNA base into another, such as replacing guanine (G) with thymine (T). This type of damage is common in skin cells and is strongly linked to skin cancer (Griffiths et al., 2019).

Certain chemicals can also damage DNA. One example is ethidium bromide, a substance that inserts itself between DNA bases. This distorts the DNA structure and increases the chance of replication errors (Strachan & Read, 2018).