Chapter 6: 6.11 Prokaryotic Operons: Maltose (Mal) Operon

Question 1

What does the Mal Operon encode?

Answer 1

Encodes for proteins required to take up and degrade maltose (MalP and MalQ)

Question 2

True or False:

The Mal operon is positively regulated

Answer 2

True

Question 3

What is the activator of the Mal Operon?

Answer 3

MalT

Question 4

What happens when maltose binds to MalT?

Answer 4

It can bind to the initiator sequence and promote transcription

Question 5

What happens to the Mal Operon if:

1. Maltose is present
2. Maltose is absent

Answer 5

1. Maltose binds to activator MalT, which binds to operator, which promotes transcription by RNA polymerase
2. Activator cannot bind to the operator, no transcription

Question 6

IMPORTANT:

What are the writing conventions for genes and proteins?

Answer 6

Genes are written in lower case and italics (e.g. malP, malQ)

Proteins are written with first letter capitalized and not italicized (e.g. MalP, MalQ)