Lawrence J G
Dept of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.
Trends Microbiol. 1997 Sep;5(9):355-9. doi: 10.1016/S0966-842X(97)01110-4.
Bacterial genes providing for single metabolic functions are found in operons, possibly because this organization allows efficient horizontal transfer among organisms. Transferred genes can confer novel metabolic phenotypes on their new hosts and allow rapid, effective exploitation of new environmental niches. Moreover, the mobility of selfish operons may facilitate bacterial speciation.
具有单一代谢功能的细菌基因存在于操纵子中，这可能是因为这种组织形式有利于基因在生物体间进行高效的水平转移。转移的基因能够赋予新宿主新的代谢表型，并使其能够迅速有效地开拓新的生态位。此外，自私操纵子的移动性可能会促进细菌物种形成。
