title: Structural and mechanistic relationships between nucleic acid polymerases.
abstract: A superfamily of nucleic acid polymerases that includes the pol I and pol alpha classes of DNA-directed DNA polymerases, mitochondrial and phage DNA-directed RNA polymerases, and most RNA-directed polymerases may be defined on the basis of the occurrence of conserved sequence motifs and tertiary structure similarities between HIV-1 reverse transcriptase, DNA polymerase I and T7 RNA polymerase. Although sequence or structural similarities do not yet justify inclusion of the multi-subunit DNA-directed RNA polymerases in this superfamily, mechanistic similarities suggest a deep relationship between these and the simpler T7-like RNA polymerases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, University of Texas Health Sciences Center, San Antonio, TX, USA.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sousa
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D004259:DNA-Directed DNA Polymerase / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification / Q000378:metabolism; D012321:DNA-Directed RNA Polymerases / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification / Q000378:metabolism; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship
chemical_list: D012321:DNA-Directed RNA Polymerases; D004259:DNA-Directed DNA Polymerase