Ever since the discovery of genes, it had been thought by many
scientists that there must be a way to regulate them. Response to
environmental conditions by the simplest and most complex of organisms
implies some regulation, and as biology developed to understand the
nature of genes, it was evident that at least some regulation would
have to take place at the level of the gene. The search for a
regulatory mechanism was intensified even more when the nature of DNA
was discovered in 1953 by Watson and Crick, and less than a decade
thereafter, Jacob and Monod would make their groundbreaking discovery
of operons. Within the following pages, we hope to clarify the
general function of an
operon, which is involved in
prokaryotic gene control.
Further, we hope to elucidate some specific characteristics of operons
by comparing the
Lactose operon and the
Arabinose operon
for
their
similarities
and
differences.