Operon

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. An operon is a functioning unit of key nucleotide sequences of DNA including an operator, a common promoter, and one or more structural genes, which is controlled as a unit to produce messenger RNA (mRNA), in the process of transcription by an RNA polymerase. The term ''operon'' was first proposed in a short paper in the Proceedings of the French Academy of Science in 1960. From this paper, the so-called general theory of the operon was developed. This theory suggested that all genes are controlled by means of operons through a single feedback regulatory mechanism: repression. Later, it was discovered that the regulation of genes is a much more complicated process. Indeed, it is not possible to talk of a general regulatory mechanism, as there are many, and they vary from operon to operon. Despite modifications, the development of the operon concept is considered one of the landmark events in the history of molecular biology.

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