what happens to the primer on the leading strand?

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dreamer67

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I know on the lagging strand, the primers are replaced by poly. I and the end gets shorter since there is no free 3' OH. What happens to the primer on the leading strand though?

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During DNA Replication, RNA primer is replaced by DNA. However, during DNA Transcription, RNA is modified by adding a 5' cap and the 3' poly-A tail ???
 
I know on the lagging strand, the primers are replaced by poly. I and the end gets shorter since there is no free 3' OH. What happens to the primer on the leading strand though?

Your question is a bit vague, but I'll try to answer it as best I can.

There is nothing special about the lagging strand or the leading strand. Both strands are synthesized exactly the same way by exactly the same enzymes. Look at a replication bubble at both ends and you'll see that there are Okazaki fragments that need to be ligated together on both the top strand and the bottom strand. A polymerase comes along and extracts the RNA primer one by one and replaces each with the DNA equivalent. Another enzyme called DNA ligase comes along and ligates the two fragments together.

Personally, I hate the leading and lagging strand terminology, but it's the way people tend to speak of it so I guess I don't have much choice.
 
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