What are DNA-RNA Hybrids? - Newbie here (Jul/31/2009 )

1st year molecular student wondering about this, i read about them being stable, but i need answers that are more in depth. Anything helps, thanks guys!

dreww on Jul 31 2009, 04:23 AM said:

More in depth about what part of RNA/DNA hybrids?

It is a ssDNA that has annealed to a complementary RNA.

fishdoc on Jul 31 2009, 03:42 AM said:

Do you mean a triplex nucleaotide strand composed of dsDNA and ssRNA

Or

do you literally mean a nucleotide strand that is composed of DNA and RNA?

dreww on Jul 31 2009, 10:23 AM said:

Hey,
They mostly occur during transcription when the newly synthesized mRNA can bind to it's complementary region of DNA. Also they are important in RNA viruses that need to reverse transcribe their RNA genome into DNA (and back again).

p

So how are they useful in research and what kind of things can you use them for? applications?