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. 1984 Aug;4(8):1591–1596. doi: 10.1128/mcb.4.8.1591

Discontinuous DNA replication of Drosophila melanogaster is primed by octaribonucleotide primer.

T Kitani, K Yoda, T Okazaki
PMCID: PMC368952  PMID: 6436687

Abstract

To investigate the precise structure of eucaryotic primer RNA made in vivo, short DNA chains isolated from nuclei of Drosophila melanogaster embryos were analyzed. Post-labeling of 5' ends of short DNA chains with polynucleotide kinase and [gamma-32P]ATP revealed that 7% of the DNA fragments were covalently linked with mono- to octaribonucleotide primers at their 5' ends. Octaribonucleotides, the major component (ca. 30%), formed the cap structure in the reaction with vaccinia guanylyltransferase and [alpha-32P]GTP, indicating that they were the intact primer RNA with tri- (or di-) phosphate termini, and the shorter ribooligomers were degradation intermediates. The intact primers started with purine (A/G ratio, 4:1), and the starting few ribonucleotide residues were rich in A.

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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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