KINETICS AND STATISTICS OF POLYNUCLEOTIDE SYNTHESIS.

Abstract : Investigations were concerned with two interrelated aspects of biological macromolecules: kinetics of formation and sequence structure. Highlights of the results obtained in these investigations are given and references to all relevant published papers are provided. Specific topics that were considered include: a model for the enzymatic synthesis of RNA-type polynucleotides, single and multicenter template replication of single-stranded DNA, cooperative unwinding and replication of double-stranded DNA, reversible kinetics on linear lattices with nearest neighbor effects (e.g., DNA 'melting'), statistical analysis of polynucleotide sequences in copolymers, and statistical analysis of amino acid sequences in proteins. Plans for future work in some of these areas are described. (Author)