Polymerization – a caveat to Condensation

I remember that I did not make the point that a condensation reaction requires the production of a small molecule and that the molecule doesn’t have to be water.  In the case of nucleic acid polymerization, inorganic pyrophosphate, or PPi (the beta and gamma phosphates from the triphosphate precursor), is produced as the NMP is incorporated into the nascent chain.

Check out this transcription video but take care to note that this is a cartoon and the authors chose to show DNA as a tube rather than a double helix that gets separated in a transcription bubble as the polymerase proceeds.