What are the multiple roles of DNA polymerase?
DNA Polymerases are one such crucial factor. They are multi-subunit enzymes that participate in the process of DNA replication in the cell. They catalyze the addition of nucleotides onto existing DNA strands.
What is the role of DNA polymerase 1?
DNA polymerase I (or Pol I) is an enzyme that participates in the process of prokaryotic DNA replication. The physiological function of Pol I is mainly to repair any damage with DNA, but it also serves to connect Okazaki fragments by deleting RNA primers and replacing the strand with DNA.
Is DNA polymerase 1 used in leading strand?
DNA primase forms an RNA primer, and DNA polymerase extends the DNA strand from the RNA primer. DNA synthesis occurs only in the 5′ to 3′ direction. On the leading strand, DNA synthesis occurs continuously. RNA primers are removed and replaced with DNA by DNA polymerase I.
What is the function of DNA polymerase delta?
DNA polymerase δ (Pol δ) occupies a central role in all of these processes: catalyzing the accurate replication of a majority of the genome, participating in several DNA repair synthetic pathways, and contributing structurally to the accurate bypass of problematic lesions during translesion synthesis.
What does DNA polymerase epsilon do?
In addition to its role in DNA replication, DNA polymerase epsilon fulfils roles in the DNA synthesis step of nucleotide excision and base excision repair, and has been implicated in recombinational processes in the cell.
What is a lagging strand in DNA?
The lagging strand is the strand of nascent DNA whose direction of synthesis is opposite to the direction of the growing replication fork. Because of its orientation, replication of the lagging strand is more complicated as compared to that of the leading strand.
Why is DNA replication such an important process?
Replication is an essential process because, whenever a cell divides, the two new daughter cells must contain the same genetic information, or DNA, as the parent cell. DNA replication initiates at specific points, called origins, where the DNA double helix is unwound.