# Chargaff's second parity rule and the kinetics of DNA replication

Source: [Chargaff's second parity rule and the kinetics of DNA replication](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/69705d60e25ad2fa9d1ece5b>)

Collection index: [llms.txt](<https://www.sota2.com/research/llms.txt>)

Data updated: 2026-02-12T05:00:04.496Z

Authors: Pierre Gaspard

Published: 2026-01-17T16:44:42.000Z

## Abstract

This paper presents the study of a DNA replication model grounded in the biochemical kinetics of DNA polymerases, which copy each DNA strand into a complementary strand, except for rare point-like mutations caused by nucleotide substitution errors. Numerical simulations of many successive replications, starting from an arbitrary initial DNA sequence, show that the fractions of mono- and oligonucleotides converge toward compliance with Chargaff's second parity rule. The theoretical framework developed for this multireplication process demonstrates that the near-equalities of complementary nucleotide fractions arise from two key features: (1) the dominant role of base-pair complementarity in replication kinetics and (2) the low intrinsic error rate of DNA polymerases. Together, these two features yield a robust mechanistic basis for Chargaff's second parity rule. These considerations explain the existence of deviations with respect to the predictions of models assuming no-strand-bias conditions.

## Recorded benchmark results

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## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.12101>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.12101.pdf>)