Which primer would be removed first The diagram below repres

Which primer would be removed first?

The diagram below represents a lagging strand template (top strand) and three Okazaki fragments with RNA shown by squiggly lines and DNA by straight lines.

Solution

In the above diagram, the lagging strand is mentioned as DNA template and in the other strand three okasari fragments with RNA primers are present. Because of the 5\' to 3\' exonuclease activity of the DNA polymerase, these RNA primers are removed and the remaining DNA fragments are joined using DNA ligase.

The first primer would be removed from the 5\' to 3\' end because the exonuclease activity of the DNA polymerase is from 5\' to 3\' end.

So the answer is third primer would be removed first, that is the last squiggly line in the diagram.