Lac Operon - Development of The Classic Model

Development of The Classic Model

The experimental microorganism used by François Jacob and Jacques Monod was the common laboratory bacterium, E. coli, but many of the basic regulatory concepts that were discovered by Jacob and Monod are fundamental to cellular regulation in all organisms. The key idea is that proteins are not synthesized when they are not needed--- E. coli conserves cellular resources and energy by not making the three Lac proteins when there is no need to metabolize lactose, such as when other sugars like glucose are available. The following section discusses how E. coli controls certain genes in response to metabolic needs.

During World War II, Monod was testing the effects of combinations of sugars as nutrient sources for E. coli and B. subtilis. Monod was following up on similar studies that had been conducted by other scientists with bacteria and yeast. He found that bacteria grown with two different sugars often displayed two phases of growth. For example, if glucose and lactose were both provided, glucose was metabolized first (growth phase I, see Figure 2) and then lactose (growth phase II). Lactose was not metabolized during the first part of the diauxic growth curve because β-galactosidase was not made when both glucose and lactose were present in the medium. Monod named this phenomenon diauxie.

Monod then focused his attention on the induction of β-galactosidase formation that occurred when lactose was the sole sugar in the culture medium.