Prokaryotic Operons

The Lac Operon animation


Remember that the operons are a way for prokaryotic organisms to express or not express their genes. This is natural to them. It is how they conserve energy when their internal or external environment changes. We learn about these operons so that we can understand how we might manipulate the eukaryotic cell. The eukaryotic cell has its own mechanisms for gene expression, but we are learning if we can control expression through methylation, acetylation, transcription, cytoplasmic factors, etc.