Project Introduction

Operon Structure

In bacteria, a set of adjacent genes on the same strand of DNA can be regulated by the same promoter. They are transcribed into a single mRNA molecule. Translation of the single mRNA molecule then yields the individual proteins. This is operon

Genes in the same operon are close to each other. Genes in the same operon have similar expression patterns. Genes in different operons are further away from each other. Genes in different operons tend to have diverse expression patterns.

In Bacillus subtilis, 10% operons are known from experiments. We can use different learning methods to predict the operon structure for the remaining 90% of the genes. we need to choose some predictor variables that can be measured easily and are somehow related to the operon structure. Here we choose two predictor variables: x1: the number of base pairs between the gene pair x2: the similarity score in expression profile.

Here is our data: