DNA Replication Flashcards
Semi-Conservative Replication
-each parental strand serves as a template for the synthesis of a new daughter strand using the base-pairing rules
Conservative Model
two parental strands stay together
Dispersive Model
all four strands somehow combine into a mixture of old and new DNA
Meselson & Stahl
- centrifuged DNA so the light isotope is at the top and the heavy is at the bottom
- when replicated the band was in the middle indicating a hybrid of the 14N and the 15N
Replication Forks
separation of parental strands
Leading Strand
replication in the 5’ to 3’ direction is continuous and only one primer is needed
Lagging Strand
- discontinuous strand
- contain okazaki fragments
- can’t be replicated until enough of the template DNA is revealed
- requires post-replication processing
- DNA ligase is able to join 3’ end of a fragment to an adjacent nucleotide by catalyzing the phosphodiester bond joining the okazaki fragments together
DNA Replication
Initiation
- DNA helicase are able to bind to parental DNA and initiate the unwinding of the DNA double helix and does so by breaking the hydrogen bonds between complementary base pairs
- single stranded binding proteins stabilize the unwound parental DNA
DNA Replication
Elongation
-RNA primase synthesizes the short RNA stretches of nucleotides which are complementary to the parental strands from which DNA polymerase can then elongate
Topoisomerases
-able to bind upstream of the replication fork and minimize the strain that occurs from unwinding
DNA Polymerase 2
does most of the elongation work for prokaryotes
DNA polymerase 1
responsible for removing the RNA primer after DNA replication and replacing short sequences with DNA nucleotides
Proofreading DNA
- errors in the strand can occur so the cell has an innate mechanism
- DNA polymerases are able to proofread each nucleotide as they’re added
Telomeres
- regions at ends of linear chromosomes
- mainly made up of repetitions of one short sequence
- serves as a buffer zone so coding genes are protected
- telomeres become shorter during successive rounds
Telomerase
- specific type of reverse transcriptase
- able to synthesize DNA from RNA
- binds to tail of telomere and catalyzes the extension of the template by adding more telomere repeats