Can DNA be created?
DNA synthesis
DNA synthesis is the natural or artificial creation of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecules. The term DNA synthesis can refer to DNA replication - DNA biosynthesis ("in vivo" DNA amplification), polymerase chain reaction - enzymatic DNA synthesis ("in vitro" DNA amplification) or gene synthesis - physically creating artificial gene sequences.
In nature, DNA molecules are created by all living cells through the process of DNA replication, with replication initiator proteins splitting the cell's DNA and copying each split strand, with the copied strands then joining together with their template strand into a new DNA molecule. Various means exist to artificially stimulate the replication of naturally occurring DNA, or to create artificial gene sequences. The process of DNA replication occurs typically as part of cell division, during interphase.
Eukaryotic DNA replication
DNA replication is the action of DNA polymerases synthesizing a DNA strand complementary to the original template strand. To synthesize DNA, the double-stranded DNA is unwound by DNA helicases ahead of polymerases, forming a replication fork containing two single-stranded templates. Replication processes permit the copying of a single DNA double helix into two DNA helices, which are divided into the daughter cells at mitosis. The major enzymatic functions carried out at the replication fork are well conserved from prokaryotes to eukaryotes, but the replication machinery in eukaryotic DNA replication is a much larger complex, coordinating many proteins at the site of replication, forming the replisome.