Okazakifragmenteista

Okazakifragmenteista refers to the short, newly synthesized DNA strands that are produced during DNA replication on the lagging strand. Discovered by Japanese scientists Reiji Okazaki and Tuneko Okazaki in the 1960s, these fragments are a fundamental aspect of how DNA is copied. DNA replication is a semi-conservative process where each strand of the double helix serves as a template for a new strand. However, DNA polymerase, the enzyme responsible for synthesizing new DNA, can only add nucleotides in the 5' to 3' direction. Since the two strands of DNA are antiparallel, one strand (the leading strand) can be synthesized continuously in the 5' to 3' direction. The other strand (the lagging strand) runs in the opposite direction. To overcome this, the lagging strand is synthesized discontinuously in short segments, which are the Okazaki fragments. Each Okazaki fragment is initiated by an RNA primer, which is later removed and replaced with DNA. The fragments are then joined together by DNA ligase, an enzyme that forms phosphodiester bonds to create a continuous DNA strand.