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Index >> Replication of DNA >> Polymerase III - Pol III

Polymerase III - Pol III

 

Polymerase III - Pol III - Polymerase III consists of two polypeptide chains having molecular weights of 140,000 and 40,000. Like polymerase II it has 5'-->3' polymerization activity and 3-->5' exonuclease activity. 5'-->3' exonuclease activity is reported to be absent, although some works indicate that nucleotides can be removed in either 3'-->5' or 5'-->3' direction.Recent work has shown that polymerase III is the main polymerizing enzyme.

It can polymerize about 15,000 nucleotides per minute in E; coli. As in the case of polymerase II, polymerase III also cannot carry out polymerization efficiently if the template DNA strand is long. However, in the presence of ATP and certain protein factors, called I and II, polymerase III can synthesize DNA on long templates.

Synthesis of long templates can also take place in the presence of another polymerase, called DNA polymerase 111*, if a factor called co-polymerase 111* is present. Perhaps the protein factor II converts polymerase ­III into polymerase 111*. The activities of polymerase III* arc similar to those of polymerase III plus the protein factors I-II.

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