Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Following Cell-fate in E. coli After Infection by Phage Lambda
Published on: October 14, 2011
Phage lambda Cro protein and cI repressor use two different patterns of specific protein-DNA interactions to achieve
1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles 90089-1481.
Abstract:
By assaying the binding of wild-type Cro to a set of 40 mutant lambda operators in vivo, we have determined that the 14 outermost base pairs of the 17 base pair, consensus lambda operator are critical for Cro binding. Cro protein recognizes 4 base pairs in a lambda operator half-site in different ways than cI repressor. The sequence determinants of Cro binding at these critical positions in vivo are nearly perfectly consistent with the model proposed by W. F. ANDERSON, D. H. OHLENDORF, Y. TAKEDA and B. W. MATTHEWS and modified by Y. TAKEDA, A. SARAI and V. M. RIVERA for the specific interactions between Cro and its operator, and explain the relative order of affinities of the six natural lambda operators for Cro. Our data call into question the idea that lambda repressor and Cro protein recognize the consensus lambda operator by nearly identical patterns of specific interactions.
Related Concept Videos
Conservative Site-specific Recombination and Phase Variation
The recognition sites for Cre recombinase called LoxP...
Cooperative Binding of Transcription Regulators
Prokaryotic Transcriptional Activators and Repressors
Transcription of prokaryotic...
CRISPR and crRNAs
The CRISPR-Cas system stores a copy of foreign DNA in the host genome and uses it to identify the foreign DNA upon reinfection. CRISPR-Cas has three different...
Viral Replication: Lysogenic Cycle
DNA Bacteriophages

