Question

Allele specific oligonucleotides are most useful for detection of what kind of mutations?

A Small insertions
B Common point mutations for a specific disease
C Rare mutations
D Frameshift mutations
E Splice site mutations in a particular exon

Answer 1

Allele specific oligonucleotides are especially useful for detecting common point mutations in a gene that are known to cause specific diseases, due to their high specificity for the mutation's nucleotide sequence.

Step-by-step explanation:

Allele specific oligonucleotides (ASOs) are most useful for the detection of common point mutations for a specific disease. These mutations, which are changes in a single nucleotide, can have significant impacts on gene function. ASOs are short, single-stranded pieces of DNA that are designed to hybridize, or bind, to a specific sequence of DNA. When they are used in genetic testing, they can detect whether a particular gene has a mutation by binding to the DNA sequence only if the mutation is present. This method is very sensitive to the specific sequence of the nucleotide, making it ideal for identifying diseases known to be caused by specific point mutations.

Other types of mutations that ASOs are not particularly suited for include frameshift mutations, which are the result of insertions or deletions of nucleotides that are not divisible by three, and splice site mutations which occur at the intron and exon boundaries affecting how the RNA is spliced.