Mechanism and physiological significance of programmed replication termination

Replication forks in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems pause at random sites due to depletion of dNTP pools, DNA damage, tight binding nonhistone proteins or unusual DNA sequences and/or structures, in a mostly non-polar fashion. However, there is also physiologically programmed replication termination at sequence-specific authentic replication termini. Here, the structure and functions of programmed replication termini, their mechanism of action and their diverse physiological functions in prokaryotes and eukaryotes have been reviewed.