POLYDEOXYADENYLIC ACID

Abstract
Known sequences of three or more deoxynucleotides can be incorporated onto the phosphoryl end of polydeoxyadenylate polymers by virtue of the fact that oligodeoxynucleotides are required to initiate polymerization of dATP catalyzed by a terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase from calf thymus gland. Chain length of the polydeoxyadenylate produced can be controlled, and molecular weight distributions are expected to be narrow. The biosynthetic polydeoxyadenylates provide simple copolymers of defined sequence, structure, and chain length for model studies on information transfer in enzyme systems.