1. Noun. (enzyme) An enzyme required for DNA unwinding. ¹
¹ Source: wiktionary.com
Medical Definition of Helicase
1. A prokaryote enzyme that uses the hydrolysis of ATP to unwind the DNA helix at the replication fork, to allow the resulting single strands to be copied. Two molecules of ATP are required for each nucleotide pair of the duplex.
This entry appears with permission from the Dictionary of Cell and Molecular Biology
(11 Mar 2008)
