What does it mean to say DNA polymerase reads a template strand to make the complementary strand?
When DNA polymerase creates a new DNA strand, it does so by matching nucleotides to the base sequence of one of the strands – the template strand. New nucleotides are brought in, which match the template in a complementary fashion (ie. A-T, C-G), and join to become one new strand. This new strand is complementary to the template.
