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DNA replication

Keeping up with the leader

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 11, page 5 (2010)Cite this article

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“the lagging strand polymerase synthesizes DNA faster than the leading strand polymerase.”

The authors investigated the kinetics of RNA primer synthesis, DNA unwinding and DNA synthesis by the bacteriophage T7 replication complex (the T7 replisome), which consists of the T7 gp4 (a protein that contains a helicase and a primase domain) and the T7 DNA polymerase, using synthetic replication fork substrates. Single molecular fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) — energy transfer between two fluorophores, which in this case are in close proximity before the DNA strands separate — shows a FRET decrease as the fluorophores move apart upon DNA unwinding and DNA synthesis, by the same rate in both the presence and absence of a priming sequence that allows primer synthesis. This suggests that the T7 replisome does not pause during lagging strand primer synthesis. Pausing is not necessary because the nascent lagging strand template loops out between the helicase and primase domains of T7 gp4 so that it keeps the RNA primers near to the T7 replisome.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Pandey, M. et al. Coordinating DNA replication by means of priming loop and differential synthesis rate. Nature 18 Nov 2009 (doi:10.1038/nature08611)

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Authors
  1. Katharine H. Wrighton
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Wrighton, K. Keeping up with the leader. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 11, 5 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm2828

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm2828

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