Nucleation and growth in one dimension. II. Application to DNA replication kinetics.

Inspired by recent experiments on DNA replication, we apply a one-dimensional nucleation-and-growth model to DNA-replication kinetics, focusing on how to extract the time-dependent nucleation rate I (t) and growth speed v from data. We discuss generic experimental problems: namely, spatial inhomogeneity, measurement noise, and finite-size effects. After evaluating how each of these affects the measurements of I (t) and v , we give guidelines for the design of experiments. These ideas are then discussed in the context of the DNA-replication experiments.