Days weaving the lagging strand synthesis of DNA — A personal recollection of the discovery of Okazaki fragments and studies on discontinuous replication mechanism —

Abstract

At DNA replication forks, the overall growth of the antiparallel two daughter DNA chains appears to occur 5′-to-3′ direction in the leading-strand and 3′-to-5′ direction in the lagging-strand using enzyme system only able to elongate 5′-to-3′ direction, and I describe in this review how we have analyzed and proved the lagging strand multistep synthesis reactions, called Discontinuous Replication Mechanism, which involve short RNA primer synthesis, primer-dependent short DNA chains (Okazaki fragments) synthesis, primer removal from the Okazaki fragments and gap filling between Okazaki fragments by RNase H and DNA polymerase I, and long lagging strand formation by joining between Okazaki fragments with DNA ligase.