Primase is an enzyme that creates a primer on a strand in order to allow DNA polymerases to synthesize a new strand. The main reason is that DNA polymerase cannot synthesize a completely new strand on a “naked” single strand, which is why it requires a primer to attach nucleotides from the 5’ to 3’ direction. Primases provide such an initiating polymer strand of RNA, from which DNA polymerase can start working. For the leading strand, primase needs to create a primer only once because DNA polymerase operates continuously until the replication process is complete. However, for the lagging strand, primase needs to provide primers for each Okazaki fragment.
What is the function of primases?
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