AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -The initiation of DNA replication occurs in two steps. First, a so-called initiator protein unwinds a short stretch of the DNA double helix. Then, a protein known as helicase attaches to and breaks apart the hydrogen bonds between the bases on the DNA strands, thereby pulling apart the two strands.

Detailed explanation-2: -Helicases are enzymes that bind and may even remodel nucleic acid or nucleic acid protein complexes. There are DNA and RNA helicases. DNA helicases are essential during DNA replication because they separate double-stranded DNA into single strands allowing each strand to be copied.

Detailed explanation-3: -Abstract. Helicases are essential enzymes involved in all aspects of nucleic acid metabolism including DNA replication, repair, recombination, transcription, ribosome biogenesis and RNA processing, translation, and decay.

Detailed explanation-4: -DNA helicases catalyze the disruption of the hydrogen bonds that hold the two strands of double-stranded DNA together. This energy-requiring unwinding reaction results in the formation of the single-stranded DNA required as a template or reaction intermediate in DNA replication, repair and recombination.

Detailed explanation-5: -Helicases are involved in virtually all cellular processes that involve DNA and RNA. Their claim to fame, though, is unwinding DNA so it can be copied during cell division.