Q. 4. What are the causes of discontinuous synthesis of DNA on one of the parental strands of DNA? What happens to these short stretches of synthesized DNA?
The synthesis of DNA always takes place in direction. In a double stranded DNA both strands are antiparallel and complementary. During DNA synthesis as both strands act as templates, only one strand, i.e., can synthesis complementary strand in direction.
The other strand, i.e., has to be synthesized in small stretches in the opposite direction as the replication fork moves to right. That is why DNA synthesis is discontinuous on one of the parental strands of DNA. These small stretches called Okazaki fragments are joined together by DNA ligase enzyme that closes the nicks.
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