A portable allosteric mechanism.

The allosteric mechanism by which the gene expression regulatory protein AraC regulates its DNA-binding activity is shown to be portable by grafting it to beta-galactosidase, generating an arabinose-regulated beta-galactosidase. A portion of the alpha-peptide sequence that complements the activity of alpha-acceptor beta-galactosidase was inserted into a nonessential region of the regulatory peptidyl arm of AraC protein. Arabinose, which regulates the position of the arm in AraC protein now regulates the availability of the alpha-peptide to alpha-acceptor beta-galactosidase, thereby modulating its activity in response to arabinose. Copyright 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.