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Polymerase

 
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A polymerase (EC 2.7.7.6/7/19/48/49) is an enzyme
Enzyme

Enzymes are biomolecules that catalysis chemical reactions. Almost all enzymes are proteins. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called Substrate , and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, the products....
 whose central function is associated with polymer
Polymer

A polymer is a large molecule composed of repeating structural units typically connected by covalent chemical bonds. While polymer in popular usage suggests plastic, the term actually refers to a large class of natural and synthetic materials with a variety of properties....
s of nucleic acid
Nucleic acid

A nucleic acid is a macromolecule composed of chains of monomeric nucleotides. In biochemistry these molecules carry genetic information or form structures within Cell ....
s such as RNA
RNA

Ribonucleic acid is a type of molecule that consists of a long chain of nucleotide units. Each nucleotide consists of a nucleobase, a ribose sugar, and a phosphate....
 and DNA
DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetics instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses....
.






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A polymerase (EC 2.7.7.6/7/19/48/49) is an enzyme
Enzyme

Enzymes are biomolecules that catalysis chemical reactions. Almost all enzymes are proteins. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called Substrate , and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, the products....
 whose central function is associated with polymer
Polymer

A polymer is a large molecule composed of repeating structural units typically connected by covalent chemical bonds. While polymer in popular usage suggests plastic, the term actually refers to a large class of natural and synthetic materials with a variety of properties....
s of nucleic acid
Nucleic acid

A nucleic acid is a macromolecule composed of chains of monomeric nucleotides. In biochemistry these molecules carry genetic information or form structures within Cell ....
s such as RNA
RNA

Ribonucleic acid is a type of molecule that consists of a long chain of nucleotide units. Each nucleotide consists of a nucleobase, a ribose sugar, and a phosphate....
 and DNA
DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetics instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses....
. The primary function of a polymerase is the polymerization
Polymerization

In polymer chemistry, polymerization is a process of reacting monomer molecules together in a chemical reaction to form three-dimensional networks or polymer chains....
 of new DNA or RNA against an existing DNA or RNA template in the processes of replication
DNA replication

DNA replication, the basis for heredity, is a fundamental process occurring in all living organisms to copy their DNA. This process is "semiconservative replication" in that each strand of the original double-stranded DNA molecule serves as template for the reproduction of the complementary strand....
 and transcription
Transcription (genetics)

Transcription is the synthesis of RNA under the direction of DNA. RNA synthesis, or transcription, is the process of transcribing DNA nucleotide sequence information into RNA sequence information....
. In association with a cluster of other enzymes and proteins, they take nucleotide
Nucleotide

Nucleotides are molecules that comprise the structural units of RNA and DNA. Additionally, nucleotides play central roles in metabolism. In that capacity, they serve as sources of chemical energy , participate in cell signaling , and are incorporated into important cofactors of enzymatic reactions ....
s from solvent, and catalyse the synthesis of a polynucleotide sequence against a nucleotide
Nucleotide

Nucleotides are molecules that comprise the structural units of RNA and DNA. Additionally, nucleotides play central roles in metabolism. In that capacity, they serve as sources of chemical energy , participate in cell signaling , and are incorporated into important cofactors of enzymatic reactions ....
 template strand using base-pairing interactions.

It is an accident of history that the enzymes responsible for the catalytic production of other biopolymer
Biopolymer

Biopolymers are a class of polymers produced by living organisms.Starch, proteins and peptides,and DNA and RNA are all examples of biopolymers, in which the monomeric units, respectively, are sugars, amino acids, and nucleotides....
s are not also referred to as polymerases.

One particular polymerase, from the thermophilic
Thermophile

A thermophile is an organism ? a type of extremophile ? that wikt:thrives at relatively high temperatures, between 45 and 80 ?C . Many thermophiles are archaea....
 bacterium
Bacteria

The Bacteria are a large group of unicellular microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals....
, Thermus aquaticus
Thermus aquaticus

Thermus aquaticus is a species of bacterium that can tolerate high temperatures, one of several thermophilic bacteria that belong to the Deinococcus-Thermus group....
 (Taq) (PDB
Protein Data Bank

The Protein Data Bank is a repository for the 3-D structural data of large biological molecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids. . The data, typically obtained by X-ray crystallography or Protein NMR and submitted by biologists and biochemistry from around the world, are released into the public domain, and can be accessed at no charge...
 , EC 2.7.7.7) is of vital commercial importance due to its use in the polymerase chain reaction
Polymerase chain reaction

The polymerase chain reaction is a technique widely used in molecular biology. It derives its name from one of its key components, a DNA polymerase used to amplify a piece of DNA by in vitro enzyme DNA replication....
, a widely-used technique of molecular biology
Molecular biology

Molecular biology is the study of biology at a molecule level. The field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry....
.

Other well-known polymerases include:

  • Terminal Deoxynucleotidyl Transferase
    Terminal Deoxynucleotidyl Transferase

    Terminal Deoxynucleotidyl Transferase, also known as TdT and terminal transferase, is a specialized DNA polymerase expressed in immature, pre-B, pre-T lymphoid cells, and acute lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoma cells....
     (TDT), which lends diversity to antibody heavy chains


  • Reverse Transcriptase
    Reverse transcriptase

    In biochemistry, a reverse transcriptase, also known as RNA-dependent DNA polymerase, is a DNA polymerase enzyme that transcription single-stranded RNA into double-stranded DNA....
    , an enzyme used by RNA
    RNA

    Ribonucleic acid is a type of molecule that consists of a long chain of nucleotide units. Each nucleotide consists of a nucleobase, a ribose sugar, and a phosphate....
     retrovirus
    Retrovirus

    A retrovirus is a virus with an RNA genome that replicates by using a viral reverse transcriptase enzyme to transcription its RNA into DNA in the host cell....
    es like HIV
    HIV

    Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that can lead to AIDS , a condition in humans in which the immune system begins to fail, leading to life-threatening opportunistic infections....
    , which is used to create a complementary strand to the preexisting strand of viral RNA
    RNA

    Ribonucleic acid is a type of molecule that consists of a long chain of nucleotide units. Each nucleotide consists of a nucleobase, a ribose sugar, and a phosphate....
     before it can be integrated into the DNA
    DNA

    Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetics instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses....
     of the host
    Host (biology)

    In biology, a host is an organism that harbors a virus or parasite, or a mutual or commensal symbiont, typically providing nourishment and shelter....
     cell
    Cell (biology)

    The cell is the structural and functional unit of all known Life organisms. It is the smallest unit of an organism that is classified as living, and is often called the building bricks of life....
    . It is also a major target for antiviral drugs.


See also

  • DNA polymerase
    DNA polymerase

    A DNA polymerase is an enzyme that catalyze the polymerization of deoxyribonucleotides into a DNA strand. DNA polymerases are best-known for their role in DNA replication, in which the polymerase "reads" an intact DNA strand as a template and uses it to synthesize the new strand....
    • DNA polymerase I
      DNA polymerase I

      DNA Polymerase I is an enzyme that participates in the process of DNA replication in prokaryotes. It is composed of 928 amino acids, and is an example of a Processivity enzyme - it can sequentially catalyze multiple polymerisations....
    • DNA polymerase II
      DNA polymerase II

      DNA polymerase II is a prokaryote DNA polymerase most likely involved in DNA repair.The enzyme is 90 kDa in size and is coded by the POLB gene....
    • DNA polymerase III holoenzyme
      DNA polymerase III holoenzyme

      DNA polymerase III holoenzyme is the primary enzyme complex involved in prokaryotic DNA replication. It was discovered by Thomas B. Kornberg and Malcolm Gefter in 1970....
    • DNA Polymerase IV (DinB) – SOS
      SOS response

      The SOS response is a postreplication DNA repair system that allows DNA replication to bypass lesions or errors in the DNA. The SOS uses the RecA protein....
       repair polymerase


  • RNA polymerase
    RNA polymerase

    RNA polymerase is an enzyme that produces RNA. In cell s, RNAP is needed for constructing RNA chains from DNA genes as templates, a process called Transcription ....
    • RNA polymerase I
      RNA polymerase I

      RNA polymerase I is, in eukaryotes, the only enzyme that Transcription ribosomal RNA a type of RNA which accounts for over 50% of the total RNA synthesized in a cell....
    • RNA polymerase II
      RNA polymerase II

      RNA polymerase II is an enzyme found in eukaryotic cells. It catalyzes the Transcription of DNA to synthesize precursors of mRNA and most snRNA and microRNA....
    • RNA polymerase III
      RNA polymerase III

      RNA polymerase III Transcription DNA to synthesize ribosomal 5S rRNA, tRNA and other small RNAs. The genes transcribed by RNA Pol III fall in the category of "housekeeping" genes whose expression is required in all cell types and most environmental conditions....
    • T7 RNA polymerase
      T7 RNA polymerase

      T7 RNA Polymerase is an RNA polymerase that catalyzes the formation of RNA in the 5'? 3' direction. T7 polymerase is extremely promoter-specific and only transcribes bacteriophage T7 DNA or DNA cloned downstream of a T7 promoter....