Answer:
Only one of the original DNA strands acts as a template during replication.
Explanation:
The DNA of every living cell replicates prior to division. It occurs in the S-phase of interphase stage. The DNA is a long double-helical structure. Before the actual duplication occurs, the double strand of the DNA needs to be unwound. This unwinding is done by HELICASE by breaking the weak hydrogen bonds that binds each base pair.
After the unwinding, two separate strands result with only one of the strands serving as a template for the new strand synthesized by DNA polymerase. DNA polymerase enzyme synthesizes new DNA strand by adding nucleotide bases that are complementary to each template strand.
i.e. DNA polymerase will add nucleotide G to the growing strand if it reads nucleotide C on the template strand.
