Talk:Operon

Improvement
I have decided to make considerable improvement to this article. Expect significant revision and additions to this page by May 14th. This includes all suggested revisions and information regarding the specific components and mutation of operons.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.139.241.181 (talk) 01:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC).

lac operon.
There appears to be no way to italicise the lac in the link to lac operon. Anyone know how to do it? It comes out as lac operon. Also remember that in prokaryotic genetics, cistron/operon names are italicised and always start in lower case. The protein product always starts in upper case and is not italicised. So lac Z is the cistron and LacZ is the protein.--Alun 05:48, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Italicization done. I did it by piping the name like so: lac operon .  SWAdair | Talk  05:54, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

What is positive gene regulation? What is negative gene regulation?

Prokaryotes
The OED online defines an operon as specific to prokaryotes. I recall that operons are specific to prokaryotes, though my memory is far from perfect. I am assuming the OED is correct. What is the general opinion.--Alun 07:38, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

The OED is incorrect (out of date, really). Operons appear most broadly in bacteria and archaea, but also appear in some eukaryotes.Parakkum 19:41, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Structural genes
I am confused by this definition, and im not sure its correct... What is meant by structural genes? Genes which produce structural proteins? - Zephyris Talk 12:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Reorganization
I think this page needs a bit of reorganization. I'm not really qualified, but I may be next year. If it hasn't been done by then, I'll attempt it.

It would be better if the contents of the article were more hierarchical. I'll meditate some more on how exactly to accomplish that. --aciel 22:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Attenuation
I wish someone made a good image of attenuation (trp operon). it would be so much easier to understand it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.68.181.184 (talk) 20:47, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

DNA, RNA or Genetic Material?
I'm revamping the article, trying to put some more beef on it, and to make it more user-friendly. I need some advice on a few points. First among them: the opening line to the article states that operons are encoded in found DNA. Since operons also occur in viruses, where the genomic material is RNA, what would you guys think of me changing DNA to "genomic material", as in "operones are a length of code in the genomic material of an organism"? Shiningheart (talk) 13:19, 20 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Sounds very sensible. The term "genomic material" is uncommon; I'd suggest "genetic material", which still admits DNA or RNA.  One question though – are you sure there are RNA viruses with operons?  Not all viruses have RNA genomes. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 13:39, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if there are, but on the other hand, I don't know that there aren't! So, what do you think? Should we rather err on the side of inclusion, or stick to DNA? Shiningheart (talk) 18:28, 20 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, keep it inclusive unless we can be sure there are no operons in RNA viruses. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 14:40, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Revamp of article
I've revamped the article, creating the "structure of an operon" category, and folding the "promoter" and "operator" subcategories into it. I'm thinking of folding the "operon as a transcriptional unit" category as well. I've also added some citations and references, so could someone let me know how to get the "this article lacks sufficient verification or citations" tag? Criticism will be happily accepted from all! Shiningheart (talk) 18:28, 20 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Those are good changes. The new lead is much better than the old one, and I think your section merge makes sense.  There's one tweak still needed in the lead though – it needs to be understandable to a reader who's not familiar with the term "monocistronic".  So that term either needs to be avoided or explained.


 * Added a definition (and a wikilink!) for the term in the header: "The genes are transcribed together into a mRNA strand and either translated together in the cytoplasm, or undergo trans-splicing to create monocistronic mRNAs that are translated separately, i.e. several strands of mRNA that each encode for a single gene product." Let me know if that's ok. Shiningheart (talk) 21:29, 21 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Getting rid of the tag is just a matter of removing from the beginning of the article, which I'll do now.  I'll make a few other tweaks before bed, which I'll try to explain in my edit summaries. Feel free to ask if anything's unclear.  Keep up the good work :-)  Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 14:40, 21 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Looking again, that's a very old reference for the definition in the lead, which gives an extremely broad definition that I'm sure has been refined since then. My memory from undergraduate is "a set of genes under the control of a single operator" or something along those lines.  Might want to look for a more recent ref, perhaps from a modern textbook. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 15:01, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Not all RNAs are mRNAs!
The article states that rRNA genes often exist in operons, and then it says that an operon is transcribed into single mRNA. This is not the only one article on Wikipedia where authors seem to think that there is no other RNA than mRNA, which results in absurd statements like the one I mentioned above. Guys, majority of transcription in cells produces ribosomal and not messenger RNA! Please, correct this asap. 62.121.66.29 (talk) 11:18, 9 April 2011 (UTC)