Deoxyribonucleic acid synthesis in mammalian nuclei. Incorporation of deoxyribonucleotides and chain-terminating nucleotide analogues.

The properties of a nuclear preparation from rat liver and thymus are described. (1) Nearest-neighbour analysis after incorporation of (32)P-labelled nucleotide residues from dATP, dCTP, dGTP, dTTP and arabinofuranosyl analogues of CTP and ATP shows template-dependent DNA synthesis. (2) Where primer termini are limiting, incorporation of arabinofuranosyl analogues of AMP and CMP residues proceeds to a limit indicating that both of these analogues are DNA chain terminators. (3) No large differences have been found between the priming potentialities or the intrinsic DNA polymerase activities of nuclei from resting or regenerating liver and the relationship of this DNA synthesis in vitro to DNA replication or repair in vivo is briefly discussed.