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operon
Sign in to savethumb|350px|right|A typical operon In genetics, an operon is a functioning unit of DNA containing a cluster of genes under the control of a single promoter. The genes are transcribed together into an mRNA strand and either translated together in the cytoplasm, or undergo splicing to create monocistronic mRNAs that are translated separately, i.e. several strands of mRNA that each encode a single gene product. The result of this is that the genes contained in the operon are either expressed together or not at all. Several genes must be co-transcribed to define an operon.
Research
43,938 papers- AraC protein, regulation of the l-arabinose operon in Escherichia coli, and the light switch mechanism of AraC action.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2010
- The Operon as a Conundrum of Gene Dynamics and Biochemical Constraints: What We Have Learned from Histidine Biosynthesis.Genes · 2023
- Computational operon prediction in whole-genomes and metagenomes.Briefings in functional genomics · 2017
- DOOR: a prokaryotic operon database for genome analyses and functional inference.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2019
- Operon and non-operon gene clusters in the C. elegans genome.WormBook : the online review of C. elegans biology · 2015
via PubMed
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- Operons
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~13 min read
Article
13 sectionsContents
- History
- Overview
- As a unit of transcription
- Operons versus clustering of prokaryotic genes
- General structure
- Regulation
- The ''lac'' operon
- The ''trp'' operon
- Predicting the number and organization of operons
- Operons response to genome-wide stresses
- See also
- References
- External links
thumb|350px|right|A typical operon In genetics, an operon is a functioning unit of DNA containing a cluster of genes under the control of a single promoter. The genes are transcribed together into an mRNA strand and either translated together in the cytoplasm, or undergo splicing to create monocistronic mRNAs that are translated separately, i.e. several strands of mRNA that each encode a single gene product. The result of this is that the genes contained in the operon are either expressed together or not at all. Several genes must be co-transcribed to define an operon.
Originally, operons were thought to exist solely in prokaryotes (which includes organelles like plastids that are derived from bacteria), but their discovery in eukaryotes was shown in the early 1990s, and are considered to be rare. In general, expression of prokaryotic operons leads to the generation of polycistronic mRNAs, while eukaryotic operons lead to monocistronic mRNAs.