The Lac Operon in E. Coli - Advantages and disadvantages
Required for the transport and metabolism of lactose in Escherichia Coli (E. coli).The lactose operon or lac operon consists of three structural genes namely lacZ, lacY, and lacA that encode proteins involved in lactose metabolism as well as several regulatory genes.
What is lac operon?
An operon is defined as a functional unit of DNA that
contains a group of genes under the control of same promoter. The lac operon in
E. coli contains three structural genes, in addition to regulatory genes.
The structural genes include: lacZ – which encodes the
enzyme, β-galactosidase; lacY – which encodes the enzyme, lactose permease; and
lacA – which encodes the enzyme, lactose transacetylase.
A single promoter is responsible for the transcription of
all these three genes, which produces a single mRNA to be translated into three
different enzymes. Of these enzymes, β-galactosidase converts lactose into
glucose and galactose; E. coli need β-galactosidase and lactose permease to
properly utilize lactose for growth.
The regulatory genes of the lac operon include: lad (lac
repressor) which contains its own promoter and terminator sequences; lacP
(promoter) which can simply be described as the RNA polymerase-binding site;
and lacO (operator) which is the repressor-binding site.
The lac repressor, which is produced from the lacl gene,
regulates the transcription of the lac operon. The repressor binds to the lac
operator to inhibit its transcription. On the other hand, the formation of the
repressor-operator complex is prevented by the inducer, which is lactose in
this case.
In other words, when lactose is present in the system, the
repressor undergoes conformational changes, which result in a reduction of its
binding affinity for the lac operator. As a consequence, the repressor
dislodges from the operon and facilitates initiating gene transcription. Therefore, when E. coli grow on sources other
than lactose, such as carbon-based sources, these genes are not transcribed,
leading to a very low concentration of these enzymes in the cell. In contrast,
the presence of lactose considerably increases the synthesis of these enzymes.
Besides the repressor-operator complex system, an additional
control system does exist in E. coli to control the expression of lac operon
genes. This additional system is called catabolite repression. This particular
control system is based on the rate of glucose utilization by cells.
In other words, when both glucose and lactose are present in
cells, transcription of lac operon genes is not initiated until all glucose
molecules are used up. When cellular glucose concentrations are high, a glucose
catabolite (glucose breakdown product) prevents the conversion of ATP into
cAMP, which is a prerequisite for lac operon transcription initiation. Thus,
glucose metabolism also regulates the expressions of lac operon genes by
modulating the cellular concentration of cAMP.
Advantages and disadvantages of lac operon
The lac operon system of E. coli has been utilized widely
for both experimental and industrial purposes. The lacZ gene, which encodes β-galactosidase,
is used most extensively as a reporter gene in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic
systems. It is considered as the most robust and reliable reporter system to
track and monitor the products of lacZ genes.
The lacZ reporter assay is based on the ability of
β-galactosidase to breakdown the colourless substrate X-gal into galactose and
an insoluble product which is blue in colour. This assay can be used to
visualize cells that express the reporter gene either constitutively or
inducibly.
However, despite being a versatile reporter system, it has
many limitations. For instance, this system is suitable for qualitative
analysis of gene expression, however, quantification of the actual product
needs further experimental procedures, such as cell harvesting and lysate
preparation. This makes the system unsuitable for high-throughput screening.
Moreover, the lacZ promoter is very large in size, thus, plasmids containing
lacZ fusions are often very large and prone to deletion.
Besides the lacZ gene, the E. coli lac promoter has also
been utilized extensively for research purposes. In addition to inducing the
expression of homologous genes in the lac operon, it is also used to induce the
expression of foreign genes that are cloned in a vector downstream to the lac
promoter.
Isopropyl β-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG), a molecular
mimic of a lactose metabolite, is used to as an inducer to initiate gene
transcription through the lac promoter.
However, the main drawback of this system is its inherent
leakiness. This promoter maintains a basal level of gene expression even in the
absence of an inducer. This makes this system unsuitable for many experimental
conditions, especially if the gene of interest has toxic effects in cells.
Sources
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/lac-operon
https://www.nature.com/scitable/content/the-lactose-operon-of-escherichia-coli-7005
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