In which enzyme would a defect majorly affect the formation of a whole new lagging strand without affecting the leading strand?

The characteristic feature of the semi-conservative replication of DNA is formation of the leading strand and the lagging strand. DNA polymerases are the enzymes that can add nucleotides to the 3 ' end of the DNA strand only. A DNA double helix is anti-parallel in which one strand runs from 5 ' to 3 ' and the other from 3 ' to 5 ' direction. On the strand having a primer with a 3 ' end, the synthesis of DNA is continuous and forms the leading strand. On the other strand, DNA fragments called Okazaki fragments are produced with multiple RNA primers. It is called the lagging strand.  The enzyme DNA ligase joins these Okazaki fragments on the lagging strand. Thus, any defect in the enzyme will affect the lagging strand only and not the leading strand as it does not have any Okazaki fragments.

if you’re on Plato the answer is A) DNA ligase

Hope this helps!

Explanation: