Studies on the temporal order of DNA replication are difficult due to the lack of sensitivity of methods available for replication kinetic analysis. To overcome problems associated with the current techniques, we propose a PCR-based assay to determine the replication time of any single-copy DNA sequence in complex genomes. Human cells labeled with 5-bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) were flow sorted, ac...

We formulate a kinetic model of DNA replication that quantitatively describes recent results on DNA replication in the in vitro system of Xenopus laevis prior to the mid-blastula transition. The model describes well a large amount of different data within a simple theoretical framework. This allows one, for the first time, to determine the parameters governing the DNA replication program in a e...

Among the key characteristics of living systems are their ability to self-replicate and fact that they exist in an open system away from equilibrium. Herein, we show how outcome competition between two self-replicators, differing size building block composition, is different depending on whether experiments conducted a closed vial or out-of-equilibrium replication–destruction regime. In system,...

Red sea bream iridovirus (RSIV) has been identified as the causative agent of a serious disease in red sea bream and at least 30 other marine fish species. We developed a viral DNA microarray containing 92 putative open reading frames of RSIV to monitor the viral gene transcription program over the time course of an in vitro infection and to classify RSIV transcripts into temporal kinetic expre...

The specificity with which the genetic code is read in protein synthesis, and with which other highly specific biosynthetic reactions take place, can be increased above the level available from free energy differences in intermediates or kinetic barriers by a process defined here as kinetic proofreading. A simple kinetic pathway is described which results in this proofreading when the reaction ...

Eukaryotic genomes are duplicated from multiple replication origins exactly once per cell cycle. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a complex molecular network has been identified that governs the assembly of the replication machinery. Here we develop a mathematical model that links the dynamics of this network to its performance in terms of rate and coherence of origin activation events, number of a...

A kinetic analysis and simulation of the replication reactions of two competing replicators-one non-metabolic (thermodynamic), the other metabolic, are presented. Our analysis indicates that in a rich resource environment the non-metabolic replicator is likely to be kinetically selected for over the metabolic replicator. However, in the more typical resource-poor environment it will be the meta...