DNA polymerase III
From The School of Biomedical Sciences Wiki
DNA polymerase III is one of the main enzymes involved in DNA replication. When the DNA double helix unwinds and a replication fork appears, DNA polymerase III duplicates new strands from the 5' to 3' end at a potential rate of 1000 nucleotides per second[1]. Because of the high rate of duplication, DNA polymerase III can make base pairing errors on both duplicated strands. Also, on the lagging strand due to the 5' to 3' duplication some parts of the new strand are missing. These are sections of unjoined DNA are known as Okazaki fragments which can then be ligated by DNA ligase.
References
- ↑ Alberts B., Johnson A., Lewis J., Raff M., Roberts K., Walter P. (2008), Biochemistry, 5th Edition, New York, Garland Science, p266-269
