[
Nature,
1994]
Many bacterial genes are organized into operons which are transcribed as polycistronic messenger RNAs. By contrast, eukaryotic genes were thought to be regulated individually and transribed as monocistronic mRNAs. Last year, however, a group led by Tom Blumenthal announced the discovery that the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans uses both the prokaryotic and the eukaryotic patterns of gene organization and transcription. Blumenthal and colleagues have now taken this work further (page 270 of this issue). They describe how they have examined the C. elegans genomic database and found that at least a quarter of the genes seem to be organized into operons.