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Discontinuous DNA Synthesis

Description
The first two questions were answered primarily through the work of Reiji Okazaki, who proposed that DNA replication could be discontinuous.

In principle one parental strand (the leading strand) could be extended continuously, with polymerase moving from the 5’ terminus to the 3’ terminus in the same direction as fork movement.

Synthesis on the lagging strand would be discontinuous; chain extension along the leading strand would expose single-strand template on the lagging strand.

This template could be copied in short fragments (later named Okazaki fragments), with polymerase moving opposite to the direction of fork movement.

Thus, lagging strand synthesis would occur in short pieces. These could then be joined to high-molecular-weight DNA by the enzyme DNA ligase.
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