Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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]
Galactoside permease is a protein coded by the lacY gene of the lac operon, and is found bound to the membrane of a cell for the purpose of binding galactoside molecules that have been solubilized. The protein is part of a system whose main function is to catalyze the accumulation and transport of lactose and other beta-galactosides across the ...
The lac operon is used in the biotechnology industry for production of recombinant proteins for therapeutic use. The gene or genes for producing an exogenous protein are placed on a plasmid under the control of the lac promoter. Initially the cells are grown in a medium that does not contain lactose or other sugars, so the new genes are not ...
The third domain contains the active site. [9] The active site is made up of elements from two subunits of the tetramer, and disassociation of the tetramer into dimers removes critical elements of the active site. The amino-terminal sequence of β-galactosidase, the α-peptide involved in α-complementation, participates in a subunit interface.
Like allolactose, IPTG binds to the lac repressor and releases the tetrameric repressor from the lac operator in an allosteric manner, thereby allowing the transcription of genes in the lac operon, such as the gene coding for beta-galactosidase, a hydrolase enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of β-galactosides into monosaccharides.
The lac repressor (LacI) is a DNA-binding protein that inhibits the expression of genes coding for proteins involved in the metabolism of lactose in bacteria. These genes are repressed when lactose is not available to the cell, ensuring that the bacterium only invests energy in the production of machinery necessary for uptake and utilization of ...
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 .
When referring to a promoter some authors actually mean promoter + operator; i.e., the lac promoter is IPTG inducible, meaning that besides the lac promoter, the lac operon is also present. If the lac operator were not present the IPTG would not have an inducible effect. [citation needed] Another example is the Tac-Promoter system (Ptac ...