iGenetics 3rd Edition by Peter Russell

Exercise 6

More than 100 promoters in bacteria have been sequenced. One element of these promoters is sometimes called the Pribnow box, named after the investigator who compared several E. coli and phage promoters and discovered a region they held in common. Discuss the nature of this sequence. (Where is it located, and why is it important?) Another consensus sequence appears a short distance from the Pribnow box. Diagram the positions of the two bacterial promoter elements relative to the start of transcription for a typical E. coli promoter.