Does RNA primase use DNA as a template or uses RNA as a template?
I know that RNA primase makes complementary RNA to start DNA replication, but is it a cellular enzyme that uses DNA as a template or does it use RNA as a template?
Regardless of what you mean, DNA is the template for DNA replication and transcription.
Do you mean DNA primase? RNA primase is not an enzyme by itself. It is a built-in component of RNA polymerase.
RNA Polymerase (which has a built-in primase) is used to transcribe mRNA from a DNA template. The TEMPLATE is DNA, but the primers are RNA nucleotides.
RNA Polymerase adds RNA primers to the DNA strands. RNA primase does not exist itself, as far as I've learned. I've seen DNA primase be referred to as RNA primase in some intro/AP bio books, but as far as I know, RNA primase is just a component of RNA polymerase II.
DNA primase is an RNA polymerase that adds RNA primers to template DNA. An enzyme later in the process of DNA replication will replace these primers with DNA nucleotides.
Answers & Comments
Regardless of what you mean, DNA is the template for DNA replication and transcription.
Do you mean DNA primase? RNA primase is not an enzyme by itself. It is a built-in component of RNA polymerase.
RNA Polymerase (which has a built-in primase) is used to transcribe mRNA from a DNA template. The TEMPLATE is DNA, but the primers are RNA nucleotides.
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RNA Polymerase adds RNA primers to the DNA strands. RNA primase does not exist itself, as far as I've learned. I've seen DNA primase be referred to as RNA primase in some intro/AP bio books, but as far as I know, RNA primase is just a component of RNA polymerase II.
DNA primase is an RNA polymerase that adds RNA primers to template DNA. An enzyme later in the process of DNA replication will replace these primers with DNA nucleotides.