Regulation of replication fork progression and stability

Published on June 29, 2009   48 min

A selection of talks on Cell Biology

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0:00
My name is Louis Aragón and I'm a group leader and professor in Genetics at Imperial College London in the UK. Today I will be talking to you about cellular mechanisms that ensure the completion of replication during S phase of the cell cycle. By promoting replication forks stability, and processivity when the DNA template presents obstacle to the replication process.
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To begin with, we will look at the basic anatomy of replication forks. For the purpose of this presentation, we will focus on a characteristic systems. Now, the replication fork is a structure which forms when DNA is being replicated. It is created with the action of the replicative helicases or the MCM complex, which uncoils the parental strands so that each strand of DNA is exposed. Replicative helicases are loaded at origins and carry out the job of leading the forks throughout the genome, the replicating forecast has two strands, the leading strand, which is synthesized in the five prime to three prime direction in a continuous manner. The lagging strand, which is opposite to the Leading and runs in the three prime to five-prime direction. Because polymerases can only synthesized in the five to three direction. The lagging strand is synthesized in short segments known as Okazaki fragments. Along the lagging strand template primates bills RNA fragments in short bursts. DNA polymerases are then able to use a three-prime ends on the RNA primers to synthesize DNA, the five to three prime direction. The RNA fragments are then removed by DNA polymerase and finally the segments of the newly synthesized strand are joined together by ligase completing their synthesis of the lagging strand. Each strand is synthesized by dedicated polymerases. The leading strand polymerases polymerase delta and epsilon, while the lagging strand polymerases is polymerase Alpha. As the fork unfolds single stranded regions are expose and these have the tendency to fall back upon themselves and formed a secondary structures. Such structures can interfere with the movement of DNA polymerases. Therefore, to prevent this from happening, single-stranded binding proteins named RPA, binds to the single-stranded DNA until the second strand is synthesized. A clump protein named PCNA or proliferating cell nuclear antigen from sliding come around DNA, helping their DNA polymerase maintain contact with the template and thereby assisting with processivity. Once the polymerase reaches the end of the template or the texts double-stranded DNA, the sliding clamp undergoes a conformational change, will release the DNA polymerase. A clamp loading complex called replication factor C is used to initially load the clamp, recognizing the junction between the template and the RNA primers. Following passage and replication, the cohesion complex is loaded, therefore holding the sister chromatids together. Now the ability of a cell to faithfully replicate
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Regulation of replication fork progression and stability

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