The growth of bacteria is determined not only by the composition of their surroundings but also by sudden changes in the living
environment. For rapid growth in different environments, bacteria need to adjust their enzyme levels in order to rapidly benefit from the nutrients currently available in their surroundings. If the living environment undergoes rapid changes, the bacterium’s own production of proteins has to conform to these changes in an effective way. How are bacteria able to adapt to a rapidly changing environment?
Bacteria can adapt to environmental changes thanks to their effective mechanism for regulating gene expression, that is, mechanisms that bacteria have effective mechanisms to control which genes are expressed and at what levels. Bacteria have specific regulatory molecules that control whether a particular gene will be transcribed into the mRNA. These molecules act by binding to DNA near the gene and help or block the transcription enzyme, RNA polymerase. Operons are very important in bacteria because operons allow the cell to efficiently express the groups of genes whose products are needed at the same time.
