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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1982 Aug;79(15):4585–4588. doi: 10.1073/pnas.79.15.4585

Synthesis by the DNA primase of Drosophila melanogaster of a primer with a unique chain length.

R C Conaway, I R Lehman
PMCID: PMC346719  PMID: 6812052

Abstract

The primase associated with the DNA polymerase alpha from embryos of Drosophila melanogaster catalyzes the synthesis of ribo-oligonucleotide primers on single-stranded M13 DNA or polydeoxythymidylate templates, which can be elongated by DNA polymerase action [Conaway, R. C. & Lehman, I. R. (1982) Proc, Natl. Acad. Sci, USA 79, 2523--2527]. The primers synthesized in a coupled primase-DNA polymerase alpha reaction with an M13 DNA template are of a unique size (15 residues); those synthesized with poly(dT) range from 8 to 15 nucleotides. Primer synthesis is initiated at multiple but nonrandom sites. Like the DNA primase of Escherichia coli and the comparable activity in intact nuclei of polyoma-infected mouse cells, the DNA primase of D. melanogaster can substitute deoxynucleotides for ribonucleotides during primer synthesis.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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