What is the effect of a missense mutation?

A missense mutation is a type of genetic mutation where a single nucleotide change results in the coding for a different amino acid in a protein. This can happen because the mutation alters one codon, which is the sequence of three nucleotides in DNA or RNA that specifies an amino acid in a protein. The substitution of one amino acid for another can have various effects on the structure and function of the resulting protein, potentially leading to changes in its activity, stability, or interaction with other molecules. This distinguishes missense mutations from other types of mutations, such as nonsense mutations, which introduce premature stop codons, or frameshift mutations, which alter the entire reading frame of the genetic code due to insertions or deletions of nucleotides.