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The lac operon of the model bacterium Escherichia coli was the first operon to be discovered and provides a typical example of operon function. It consists of three adjacent structural genes, a promoter, a terminator, and an operator. The lac operon is regulated by several factors including the availability of glucose and lactose.
The lactose operon (lac operon) is an operon required for the transport and metabolism of lactose in E. coli and many other enteric bacteria.Although glucose is the preferred carbon source for most enteric bacteria, the lac operon allows for the effective digestion of lactose when glucose is not available through the activity of β-galactosidase. [1]
The Lac operon is an interesting example of how gene expression can be regulated. Viruses, despite having only a few genes, possess mechanisms to regulate their gene expression, typically into an early and late phase, using collinear systems regulated by anti-terminators (lambda phage) or splicing modulators .
The lac operon in the prokaryote E. coli consists of genes that produce enzymes to break down lactose. Its operon is an example of a prokaryotic silencer. The three functional genes in this operon are lacZ, lacY, and lacA. [6] The repressor gene, lacI, will produce the repressor protein LacI which is under allosteric regulation.
The structure of a prokaryotic operon of protein-coding genes. Regulatory sequence controls when expression occurs for the multiple protein coding regions (red). Promoter , operator and enhancer regions (yellow) regulate the transcription of the gene into an mRNA.
The trp operon additionally uses attenuation to control expression of the operon, a second negative feedback control mechanism. The trp operon is well-studied and is commonly used as an example of gene regulation in bacteria alongside the lac operon .
A structural gene is a gene that codes for any RNA or protein product other than a regulatory factor (i.e. regulatory protein).A term derived from the lac operon, structural genes are typically viewed as those containing sequences of DNA corresponding to the amino acids of a protein that will be produced, as long as said protein does not function to regulate gene expression.
[63] [64] The genes in an operon are transcribed as a continuous messenger RNA, referred to as a polycistronic mRNA. The term cistron in this context is equivalent to gene. The transcription of an operon's mRNA is often controlled by a repressor that can occur in an active or inactive state depending on the presence of specific metabolites. [65]