Oct ’26: Our PolA/PolD Manuscript is Published in Cell
Our manuscript titled Metazoan lagging-strand DNA synthesis is distributive has been published in Cell (available online now). In this paper we revisit the textbook model of lagging strand DNA synthesis in higher eukaryotes, also known as the trombone model. It has long been thought/assumed that the lagging strand polymerases PolA and PolD are stably tethered to the replisome, and that the same PolA/D molecule is repeatedly reused to synthesize many (hundreds) of Okazaki fragments. In this study, Luke showed that neither PolA nor PolD are reused, and that each Okazaki fragment requires the recruitment of a new PolA and PolD molecule, challenging the widely-accepted trombone model. Our work illustrates how visualizing the dynamics of key factors involved in genome maintenance can overturn long-standing models in the field.
Congratulations to the first author - Luke Lynch (a graduate student in our lab, who recently started his postdoc in the Walter lab at Harvard Medical School) and to the second author - Jinho Park (a postdoc in our lab, who is now on the academic job market).
