what is an inducible gene?

Answer 1

An inducible gene is one whose expression under one set of conditions is very low or none, and then other a different set of conditions, the gene is expressed at a very high level. Generally, the addition of a specific compound to the cells causes the rate of expression of the gene to increase many times. For example, in the absence of the sugar lactose, E. coli cells do not express the genes of the lac operon (beta-galactosidase...). However, if you add lactose to the medium, the genes of the operon are expressed at very high levels. So, the genes are the lac operon are "indicible".

Answer 2

An inducible gene is one whose can be 'turned on'. Not all stretches of DNA are transcribed into mRNA which is translated into protein. As the person above said, the term for a gene being 'turned on' is that it is expressed. Actually, in multicellular organisms almost all gene expression is tightly controlled and very few would be considered anything other than inducible. The ones that aren't are on all the time and are sometimes called constituitive or housekeeping genes.

Answer 3

for the sake of simplicity im am not going to go into the scientific definition... but an inducible gene is a gene that can be activated or deactivated through "chemical", biological or enviromental methods.