Single-stranded RNA As Primers of Terminal Deoxynucleotidyl Transferase for Template-Independent DNA Polymerization

Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase（Td T） has been characterized as template-independent polymerase using single-stranded DNA（ss DNA） as primers to generate random oligonucleotides. However, the extension performance of Td T to single-stranded RNA（ss RNA） is vague. By systematically comparing and contrasting the performance of Td T-catalyzed ss DNA and ss RNA extension, it is indicated that the catalytic efficiency of ss RNA as primers was about 3 times lower than ss DNA as primers. Collectively, it is believed that understanding the catalytic performance of Td T will help to design the strategy to synthesize chimeric DNA on 3-OH of ss RNA, which becomes invaluable.