DNA replication in living organisms need RNA primers to initiate. How long are these primers and what kind of other characteristics do these primers have? Where and how are they produced? Are they randomly distributed through DNA if they are shorter ones? Thank you for an answer or recommendations of references. Dan
RNA primers are approximately 5 to 10bp long for initiating replication in living organisms. These primers are produced by an enzyme named Primase (a RNA Polymerase) as DNA Polymerase needs a 3' end to add nucleotides and cannot directly copy it's template strand. Lagging strand needs several RNA primers and thus it is distributed throughout the lagging strand. Direct or leading strand requires a single RNA primer.
Dear Dan
the long of primer is changed in different case. for example in prokaryotic DNA replication, primer long is 10 - 15 bp but in eukaryotes cells it varies depending on the genome (organel or nuclear genome).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26850/
Gene VII or Arthur Kornberg's DNA replication are good reference books for understanding the mechanism of DNA replication.
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