Home▸Molecular Biology▸The DNA Replication Fork: Copying the Genome at High Speed

🧬 The DNA Replication Fork: Copying the Genome at High Speed

Explore how helicase, primase, and DNA polymerase work together at the replication fork to copy the genome quickly and accurately, and why the leading and lagging strands are built so differently.

Molecular Biology3DModerate60 FPS

This simulator visualizes the replication fork in action, showing helicase unwinding the helix, single-strand binding proteins stabilizing the exposed strands, and the contrasting continuous versus discontinuous synthesis of the leading and lagging strands.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Press play to watch the fork advance, and use the controls to adjust the fork speed or step through the formation and joining of individual Okazaki fragments on the lagging strand.

💡 Did You Know?

Human cells rely on thousands of replication origins firing across the genome simultaneously, since a single fork moving at only about 50 nucleotides per second would otherwise take weeks to copy all three billion base pairs alone.

⚙ Under the hood

Explore how helicase, primase, and DNA polymerase work together at the replication fork to copy the genome quickly and accurately, and why the leading and lagging strands are built so differently.

dna replicationmolecular biologygeneticshelicasedna polymeraseokazaki fragmentsbiochemistrycell biology

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install