Final answer:
A silent mutation is a type of missense mutation that does not affect the function of the resulting protein due to the redundancy of the genetic code. It occurs when the change to the DNA sequence does not alter the protein's amino acid sequence.
Step-by-step explanation:
A silent mutation is a missense mutation that has no detectable effect on protein function. A silent mutation occurs when a change in the DNA sequence does not alter the amino acid sequence of the resulting protein. This is possible because the genetic code is redundant, meaning there are multiple codons for a single amino acid.
Therefore, a change in one of the codon's nucleotides can still result in the same amino acid being incorporated into the protein, leaving the protein's function unchanged. Two other types of point mutations include nonsense mutations and missense mutations.
A nonsense mutation is a more serious type of mutation where a codon is changed to a stop codon, leading to premature termination of the protein and often a non-functional protein product. On the other hand, a missense mutation is when a codon is changed to encode a different amino acid, which can have varying effects on the protein depending on the properties of the amino acids involved.