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Concept

Okazaki fragments

A double helix structure resembling DNA is depicted with a gradient background, symbolizing Okazaki fragments, short stretches of DNA produced during replication.

Short stretches of DNA, roughly 100 to 200 bases in eukaryotes and 1000 to 2000 in bacteria, produced on the lagging strand during replication. Because DNA polymerase only works in one direction, the lagging strand is built piecewise and the fragments are later joined by ligase. Named for Reiji and Tsuneko Okazaki, whose 1968 pulse-labelling experiments in Nagoya revealed them.

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