The complementary strands of the DNA double helix are antiparallel and their replication proceeds semiconservatively. Since both replica strands are synthesized sequentially and nearly simultaneously, one nascent polynucleotide chain grows in the 5′→3′ direction and the other in the 3′→5′ direction. Only one enzymatic reaction is known to elongate the DNA chain: the 5′→3′ chain elongation catalyzed by many DNA polymerases. To reconcile the dilemma of the simultaneous growth of the two antiparallel replica polynucleotide chains and the strictly 5′→3′ chain growth by known DNA polymerases, we proposed the discontinuous model of DNA replication 11 years ago (Okazaki et al. 1967; Okazaki et al. 1968). We supposed that the replication of DNA proceeds by joining short polydeoxynucleotide fragments which are synthesized exclusively in the 5′→3′ direction. The daughter strand that is elongated in the 3′→5′ direction can be synthesized in a retrograde fashion by 5′→3′ polymerization...
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Okazaki et al. (1979) studied this question.