In dna replication in bacteria, the enzyme dna polymerase iii (abbreviated dna pol iii) adds nucleotides to a template strand of dna. but dna pol iii cannot start a new strand from scratch. instead, a primer must pair with the template strand, and dna pol iii then adds nucleotides to the primer, complementary to the template strand. each of the four images below shows a strand of template dna (dark blue) with an rna primer (red) to which dna pol iii will add nucleotides.