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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1978 Aug;75(8):3578–3582. doi: 10.1073/pnas.75.8.3578

How lac repressor recognizes lac operator.

D V Goeddel, D G Yansura, M H Caruthers
PMCID: PMC392828  PMID: 278973

Abstract

Nucleotide analogs were substituted for unmodified nucleotides at specific sites in the lac operator sequence by a combination of chemical and enzymatic procedures. The nitrocellulose filter assay was used to study the interactions of these modified operators with wild-type (SQ) and tight-binding (QX86) lac repressors. These studies implicate directly the 5 methyl of thymine and the 2 amino of guanine as important operator-repressor contact sites. Furthermore, when these findings are combined with published results from other laboratories, a model for the lac operator-lac repressor interaction can be derived. Two important postulates follow from this model. (i) The repressor interacts at specific and defined sites with the N7 of guanine, the 5 methyl of thymine, the 2 amino of guanine, and the central major groove of the operator. (ii) The repressor binds to one side of the operator.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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