Figure 1.

Schematic representation of germline and somatic BRCA gene mutations. In the case of germline mutation, all cells of the body contain the mutated gene variant, and it is always passed on from parent to offspring. Somatic mutations occur at a later stage of ontogeny, and the random mutations develop during normal mitotic cell divisions. Note: The schematic human figure, the embryo, and the oocyte were created with the assistance of DALL·E 2; otherwise, the authors did every other aspect of the figure, including the different coloring, arrangement, and labeling. The normal and mutated DNA sequence is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; the unmodified original was created by NASA/David Herring and distributed under the CC0 1.0 license.