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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
. 1974 Apr;71(4):1035–1039. doi: 10.1073/pnas.71.4.1035

Conditions for Using DNA Polymerase I as an RNA-Dependent DNA Polymerase

S C Gulati 1,2, D L Kacian 1,2, S Spiegelman 1,2
PMCID: PMC388156  PMID: 4133845

Abstract

Conditions are described for using Escherichia coli DNA polymerase I for synthesizing complementary DNA copies of natural RNA molecules, which are suitable for use in hybridization experiments. The molar ratio of enzyme to template is critical; below a certain level, synthesis is not observed. Hybrids formed with the complementary DNA are of comparable specificity and stability to those formed with complementary DNAs synthesized by viral RNA-directed DNA polymerase. Synthesis of dA-dT polymers, a common occurrence with this enzyme, can be eliminated by including distamycin in the reaction mixture.

Keywords: RNA-directed complementary DNA, enzyme mechanism, distamycin A, hemoglobin complementary DNA

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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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