Question

Describe the structure of a typical operon. How many genes are found in an operon

Answer 1

the core operon "ingredients" are

- a promotor where DNA-binding proteins may interact and promote the transcription of the gene. always upstream of the coding DNA region
- operator regions around the promotor where repressing factors and promoting factors can bind to increase or decrease the RNA expression rate
- one or more genes controlled by the same operon. in theory, there is no limit to the number of genes, as in many cases you want to express more than on gene with the same stimulus activating the operon. I can't tell you a number here, but you can engineer operons that express hundreds of proteins, in theory.