How do RNA and DNA polymerases contribute to nucleic acid synthesis?

RNA and DNA polymerases play a crucial role in nucleic acid synthesis by joining nucleotides to create daughter strands, a process essential for replication and transcription. These enzymes catalyze the polymerization of nucleotides, forming covalent bonds between them to extend an RNA or DNA strand based on a template.

During DNA replication, DNA polymerase synthesizes a new strand by adding nucleotides complementary to the template strand. Similarly, during transcription, RNA polymerase synthesizes RNA by adding ribonucleotides that are complementary to the DNA template. This ability to join nucleotides specifically enables the formation of new nucleic acid molecules, which is fundamental to cellular function, genetic information transfer, and expression of genes.

The other options do not accurately represent the primary functions of RNA and DNA polymerases. The statement about binding to RNA only is misleading, as DNA polymerases primarily work with DNA and RNA polymerases with RNA. Digesting nucleic acids refers to the action of nucleases, not polymerases, which have a very different function. Unwinding double-stranded DNA is typically the role of helicases rather than polymerases, which rely on the existing single strands for synthesizing nucleic acids. Thus, the joining