DNA primase large subunit is an
enzyme
An enzyme () is a protein that acts as a biological catalyst by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrate (chemistry), substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different mol ...
that in humans is encoded by the ''PRIM2''
gene
In biology, the word gene has two meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity. The molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protei ...
.
The replication of DNA in
eukaryotic cells is carried out by a complex chromosomal replication apparatus, in which
DNA polymerase alpha and
primase are two key enzymatic components. Primase, which is a
heterodimer
In biochemistry, a protein dimer is a macromolecular complex or multimer formed by two protein monomers, or single proteins, which are usually non-covalently bound. Many macromolecules, such as proteins or nucleic acids, form dimers. The word ...
of a small subunit and a large subunit, synthesizes small RNA primers for the
Okazaki fragments
Okazaki fragments are short sequences of DNA nucleotides (approximately 150 to 200 base pairs long in eukaryotes) which are synthesized discontinuously and later linked together by the enzyme DNA ligase to create the lagging strand during DN ...
made during discontinuous DNA replication. The protein encoded by this gene is the large, 58 kDa primase subunit.
References
Further reading
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External links
PDBe-KBprovides an overview of all the structure information available in the PDB for Human DNA primase large subunit (PRIM2)
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