Process of copying a double-stranded DNA molecule.
2
votes
1answer
110 views
How does a thymidine block halt DNA synthesis?
The best I've been able to find is that there's a feedback mechanism, but what is this feedback, and how does the mechanism work? If it's just that the concentration of thymidine is too high, why ...
10
votes
2answers
241 views
Which bacteria have the highest mutation rate?
From my reading on M. tuberculosis, I know that this organism has a pretty high mutation rate due to uncorrected sloppy replication, which leads to a high rate of development of spontaneous resistance ...
2
votes
1answer
168 views
What happens when cells in your body run out of telomeres?
In my biology book I read about an experiment where the genes encoding telomerase were 'knocked out', but they could still live a normal life and no adverse effects were noticed until the 6th ...
5
votes
2answers
83 views
Do somatic cells alter their own nucleotide sequence?
I seem to remember reading that embryonic cells will frequently replicate the section of their genome containing rDNA by splicing in duplicate genes. The cells use this to produce ribosomes at a rate ...
9
votes
2answers
138 views
Are there viruses that affect many kinds of cells across species?
I'm not a professional in biology nor a student, but I'm curious about this. To be more specific: why doesn't a plant virus affect animal cells?
I suspect that different kinds of cells have different ...
11
votes
2answers
10k views
Why is DNA replication performed in the 5' to 3' direction?
DNA replication goes in the 5' to 3' direction because DNA polymerase acts on the 3'-OH of the existing strand for adding free nucleotides. Is there any biochemical reason why all organisms evolved to ...
