Why does it inhibit reverse transcriptase and not the cells own DNA polymerases?
To my knowledge, AZT inhibits only 2 “minor” cellular polymerases : DNA polymerase gamma and telomerase/reverse transcriptase (TERT). Other cellular polymerases, unnlike viral reverse transcriptase, don’t use AZT as a substrate for nucleic acid synthesis, so they are not inhibited. Hope this helps.
Related Questions
- The DNA on the slide is sense, so that it can match anti-sense DNA from the samples produced by the reverse transcriptase. How is this sense DNA produced for the DNA library?
- Why does it inhibit reverse transcriptase and not the cells own DNA polymerases?
- How does reverse transcriptase make double stranded DNA from RNA?
