Hi again,

A very simple statement I would like to test.

 

"In a normal adult person, the only somatic cell mutation (happening for instance during DNA replication) whose expression could be appreciated by other humans is Cancer"

 

Many thanks.

The way it's phrased, the only thing you need to do to test it is to find a counter example. You say, "the ONLY somatic cell mutation...," hence you just need one other to prove it false.

 

Also, I'm entirely unsure of what you mean by "whose expression could be appreciated by other humans." Appreciated like I appreciate good beer and sex?

You are right , what I meant was "notice". The underlying question is if there are other somatic cell mutations that can be propagated (like Cancer) and finally have a visible expression.

 

PS: I appreciate normal beer and good sex instead.

 

Thanks.

Well, yeah. Cancer is just a radical manifestation. One question is what you mean by expression. Mutations in non-coding areas are also an option. In fact, cancer can also be associated to mutations in regulatory (as opposed to coding) regions.

Both are in principle detectable (e.g. by highly parallelized hybridizations or direct sequencing) though take quite time and effort.

Hi again,

A very simple statement I would like to test.

 

"In a normal adult person, the only somatic cell mutation (happening for instance during DNA replication) whose expression could be appreciated by other humans is Cancer"

 

Many thanks.

 

I imagine that any mutation that affected pigmentation, e.g., of the hair or skin, would be potentially noticeable.

Aging at the cellular level. As I understand it, chromosomes have telomers at their ends, a bit of which is removed at each replication cycle. When the chromosome runs out of telomers, regular DNA is lost, which is a form of mutation. The cells die or become senescent.