Lathe W C, Snel B, Bork P
European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69012, Heidelberg, Germany.
Trends Biochem Sci. 2000 Oct;25(10):474-9. doi: 10.1016/s0968-0004(00)01663-7.
Operons, co-transcribed and co-regulated contiguous sets of genes, are poorly conserved over short periods of evolutionary time. The gene order, gene content and regulatory mechanisms of operons can be very different, even in closely related species. Here, we present several lines of evidence which suggest that, although an operon and its individual genes and regulatory structures are rearranged when comparing the genomes of different species, this rearrangement is a conservative process. Genomic rearrangements invariably maintain individual genes in very specific functional and regulatory contexts. We call this conserved context an uber-operon.
操纵子是共同转录和共同调控的相邻基因集合，在较短的进化时间内保守性较差。即使在亲缘关系很近的物种中，操纵子的基因顺序、基因组成和调控机制也可能有很大差异。在这里，我们提供了几条证据，表明尽管在比较不同物种的基因组时，操纵子及其单个基因和调控结构会发生重排，但这种重排是一个保守的过程。基因组重排总是将单个基因维持在非常特定的功能和调控环境中。我们将这种保守的环境称为超级操纵子。
