  Electronic properties of DNA are believed to play a crucial role in many
phenomena in living organisms, for example the location of DNA lesions by base
excision repair (BER) glycosylases and the regulation of tumor-suppressor genes
such as p53 by detection of oxidative damage. However, the reproducible
measurement and modelling of charge migration through DNA molecules at the
nanometer scale remains a challenging and controversial subject even after more
than a decade of intense efforts. Here we show, by analysing 162
disease-related genes from a variety of medical databases with a total of
almost 20,000 observed pathogenic mutations, a significant difference in the
electronic properties of the population of observed mutations compared to the
set of all possible mutations. Our results have implications for the role of
the electronic properties of DNA in cellular processes, and hint at the
possibility of prediction, early diagnosis and detection of mutation hotspots.
