a frameshift mutation
Deleting or inserting a nitrogen base causes a frameshift mutation. All of the codons following the mutation are misread. This may be disastrous. To see why, consider this English-language analogy. Take the sentence The big dog ate the red cat. If the second letter of big is deleted, then the sentence becomes: The bgd oga tet her edc at. Deleting a single letter makes the rest of the sentence impossible to read.