Page 226 - The Manga Guide to Biochemistry

DNA replication and the Enzyme DNA Polymerase

So why is DNA replicated? Since DNA contains our genes, it must be replicated
whenever cells divide and multiply.

Genes are passed on from parents to children, as well as from cell to cell.
When a cell divides, the same genes must be inherited by the two new cells, so
the DNA must be replicated before the cell splits.

Cell DNA is
That’s...totally cool! replicated

Cleanly
divided

The first person to isolate an enzyme involved in
DNA replication—called DNA polymerase I—was the
American biochemist Arthur Kornberg (1918–2007).

DNA polymerase was the enzyme we used when we
obtained Vmax and Km. Do you remember?

Yeah! That’s the enzyme that replicates DNA? Arthur Kornberg
Enzymes really do a lot, don’t they?

In 1956, Kornberg extracted an active enzyme used for synthesizing DNA from
a liquid in which E. coli was pulverized. This enzyme could be used to artificially
synthesize DNA in a test tube, which created a great sensation in the scientific
world at the time.

That discovery was seriously important.

212 Chapter 5