Minimal length of the lactose operator sequence for the specific recognition by the lactose repressor.

A number of specific duplex DNA sequences which correspond to varying lengths of the lactose operator region have been synthesized by a combination of chemical and enzymatic methods. Repressor binding studies on these synthetic duplex operator molecules show that all the nucleotides essential for full lactose operator-repressor interactions are included in a 17-nucleotide-long duplex DNA that constitutes the minimal recognition sequence for this DNA-protein interaction.