Okazaki fragments are short, newly synthesized DNA fragments that are formed on the lagging template strand during DNA replication.Okazaki fragments are short, newly synthesized DNA fragments that are formed on the lagging template strand during DNA replication. They are complementary to the lagging template strand, together forming short double-stranded DNA sections.he experiments (see below) were conducted during the 1960s with Reiji Okazaki, Tsuneko Okazaki, Kiwako Sakabe and their colleagues during their research on DNA replication of Escherichia coli. In 1966, Kiwako Sakabe and Reiji Okazaki first showed that DNA replication was a discontinuous process involving fragments.