Why is replication on one strand of dna continuous, while on the other strand the replication must be discontinuous?
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Answer:
The fork is drawn to emphasize its similarity to the bacterial replication fork depicted in Figure. Although both forks use the same basic components, the mammalian fork differs in at least two important respects.
First, it uses two different DNA polymerases on the lagging strand.
Second, the mammalian DNA primase is a subunit of one of the lagging-strand DNA polymerases, DNA polymerase α, while that of bacteria is associated with a DNA helicase in the primosome. The polymerase α (with its associated primase) begins chains with RNA, extends them with DNA, and then hands the chains over to the second polymerase (δ), which elongates them. It is not known why eucaryotic DNA replication requires two different polymerases on the lagging strand. The major mammalian DNA helicase seems to be based on a ring formed from six different Mcm proteins; this ring may move along the leading strand, rather than along the lagging-strand template shown here.
Reference: Molecular Biology of the Cell. 4th edition. Alberts B, Johnson A, Lewis J, et al. New York: Garland Science; 2002.
