News tagged with dna replication

Biologists' discovery may force revision of biology textbooks

Basic biology textbooks may need a bit of revising now that biologists at UC San Diego have discovered a never-before-noticed component of our basic genetic material.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Aug 18, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (23) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Enzyme corrects more than one million faults in DNA replication

Scientists from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine (IGMM) at the University of Edinburgh have discovered an enzyme that corrects the most common mistake in mammalian DNA.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created May 10, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (16) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

A $1000 genome could be reached by 2013

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new report published in the journal Nature describes the new machine created by Jonathan Rothberg of Ion Torrent Systems which uses semiconductors to decode DNA and takes them one step c ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Jul 21, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (14) | comments 2 | with audio podcast report

Scientists find a key to maintaining our DNA

DNA contains all of the genetic instructions that make us who we are, and maintaining the integrity of our DNA over the course of a lifetime is a critical, yet complex part of the aging process. In an important, albeit early ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Mar 18, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (12) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Scientists crash test DNA's replication machinery

(PhysOrg.com) -- Important molecular machines routinely crash into one another while plying their trades on DNA. New research shows that the enzymes that copy DNA before cell division, called replisomes, are the kings of ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Feb 10, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (9) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Researchers advance understanding of enzyme that regulates DNA

Thanks to a single-molecule imaging technique developed by a University of Illinois professor, researchers have revealed the mechanisms of an important DNA-regulating enzyme.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Aug 20, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (9) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Why cancer drugs lose their power: Platinum-based cancer drugs destroy tumor cells by binding to DNA strands

(PhysOrg.com) -- For 30 years, the chemotherapy drug cisplatin has been one of doctors' first lines of defense against tumors, especially those of the lung, ovary and testes. While cisplatin is often effective ...

Medicine & Health / Genetics

created Apr 14, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Single-molecule manipulation for the masses

Scientists have developed a new massively-parallel approach for manipulating single DNA and protein molecules and studying their interactions under force. The finding appears in the June 2 issue of Biophysical Jo ...

Nanotechnology / Nanophysics

created Jun 02, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Researchers demonstrate possible primitive mechanism of chemical info self-replication

(Phys.org) -- When scientists think about the replication of information in chemistry, they usually have in mind something akin to what happens in living organisms when DNA gets copied: a double-stranded molecule ...

Chemistry / Materials Science

created May 25, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (6) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

For unzipping DNA mysteries -- literally -- physicists discover how a vital enzyme works

With an eye toward understanding DNA replication, Cornell researchers have learned how a helicase enzyme works to actually unzip the two strands of DNA.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Sep 18, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Scientists use math modeling to predict unknown biological mechanism of regulation

A team of scientists, led by a biomedical engineer at The University of Texas at Austin, have demonstrated - for the first time - that mathematical models created from data obtained by DNA microarrays, can ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Oct 14, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (5) | comments 0

DNA template could explain evolutionary shifts

Rearrangements of all sizes in genomes, genes and exons can result from a glitch in DNA copying that occurs when the process stalls at a critical point and then shifts to a different genetic template, duplicating and even ...

Medicine & Health / Genetics

created Jun 21, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Collisions of protein machines cause DNA replication derailment

Scientists have published results that will forever change the way researchers view the interplay between gene expression, DNA replication and the prevention of DNA damage.

Biology / Biotechnology

created Feb 24, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Study reveals how protein machinery binds and wraps DNA to start replication

(PhysOrg.com) -- Before any cell - healthy or cancerous - can divide, it has to replicate its DNA. So scientists who want to know how normal cells work - and perhaps how to stop abnormal ones - are keen to ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Mar 06, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

UCSD Engineer Provides Insights to Decades-Old DNA Squabble

(PhysOrg.com) -- A group of nanoengineers, biologists and physicists have used innovative approaches to deduce the internal structure of chromatin, a key player in DNA regulation, to reconcile a longstanding ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Jul 31, 2009 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0

DNA replication

DNA replication, the basis for biological inheritance, is a fundamental process occurring in all living organisms to copy their DNA. This process is "semiconservative" in that each strand of the original double-stranded DNA molecule serves as template for the reproduction of the complementary strand. Hence, following DNA replication, two identical DNA molecules have been produced from a single double-stranded DNA molecule. Cellular proofreading and error-checking mechanisms ensure near perfect fidelity for DNA replication.

In a cell, DNA replication begins at specific locations in the genome, called "origins". Unwinding of DNA at the origin, and synthesis of new strands, forms a replication fork. In addition to DNA polymerase, the enzyme that synthesizes the new DNA by adding nucleotides matched to the template strand, a number of other proteins are associated with the fork and assist in the initiation and continuation of DNA synthesis.

DNA replication can also be performed in vitro (outside a cell). DNA polymerases, isolated from cells, and artificial DNA primers are used to initiate DNA synthesis at known sequences in a template molecule. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a common laboratory technique, employs such artificial synthesis in a cyclic manner to amplify a specific target DNA fragment from a pool of DNA.

For more information about DNA replication, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Related topics: cancer cells , chromosomes , dna damage