Does the leading strand require DNA ligase?

Posted July 22, 2020

Answer

No. The role of DNA ligase in DNA replication is to join the Okazaki fragments synthesized on the lagging strand into a continuous strand. In the case of leading strand, the nucleotides are added to the growing 3’ end continuously. Therefore, no fragments are created that need to be joined; hence, no DNA ligase is required.

Additional resources

Helixyte™ Green *10,000X Aqueous PCR Solution*

6-ROX glycine *25 uM fluorescence reference solution for PCR reactions*

Perdew, G. H., Heuvel, J. P. V., & Peters, J. M. (2008). Regulation of gene expression. Springer Science & Business Media.

Lodish, H., Berk, A., Kaiser, C. A., Krieger, M., Scott, M. P., Bretscher, A., ... & Matsudaira, P. (2008). Molecular cell biology. Macmillan.