Biology DNA Replication

DNA Replication

• Changes in an organism’s DNA are rarely beneficial. One source of DNA changes is DNA replication. During DNA replication, all of an organism's DNA is copied. For humans, that means copying around 3 billion base pairs each time the DNA in a cell is replicated. Because faithful DNA replication is so important, organisms have a number of ways to ensure replication accuracy.

• In this Lesson, we'll look at the details of DNA replication and how accurate replication is accomplished. We'll also discuss the consequences of DNA changes.

• The structure of DNA provides an elegantly simple mechanism for DNA replication. One double-stranded DNA molecule is used to produce two identical molecules of double-stranded DNA by copying each individual strand independently.