Final answer:
Eukaryotic cells contain complex genomes with multiple origins of replication, allowing for efficient DNA duplication through a finely orchestrated sequence of initiation, elongation, and termination, despite the relatively slow synthesis rate of 100 nucleotides per second.
Step-by-step explanation:
DNA Replication in Eukaryotic Cells
Eukaryotic organisms have complex genomes with large amounts of DNA compared to prokaryotes. In humans, the genome has about 3 billion base pairs, all of which must be duplicated during the S phase of the cell cycle. Eukaryotic chromosomes have as many as 100,000 origins of replication, a stark contrast to the single origin in prokaryotic cells. This multitude of origins is necessary to complete DNA replication promptly given the size and complexity of these genomes.
DNA replication in eukaryotes involves a sequence of initiation, where the DNA unwinds, elongation, where new strands of DNA are synthesized, and termination, which concludes the replication process. The replication forks move bi-directionally from each origin. Multiple proteins and enzymes are involved, with key roles played by helicase in unwinding DNA, RNA primase in laying down RNA primers, DNA polymerases in synthesizing new DNA strands, and ligase in joining DNA fragments.
Eukaryotic DNA replication is considerably slower than in prokaryotes, occurring at a rate of approximately 100 nucleotides per second. However, this challenge is met by the simultaneous activation of thousands of replication origins, ensuring that the entire genome is efficiently duplicated without missing or duplicating sections of the DNA sequence.