Microbiologists Are Investigating Sugar Metabolism in Wild-Type and Mutant Strains

Microbiologists are investigating sugar metabolism in wild-type and mutant strains of Escherichia coli.  Both strains are found to grow viable colonies on lactose-containing media.  Each strain is then cultured on a new growth medium containing only glucose.  Representative colonies of each strain from the new media undergo Western blot processing using a fluorescently labeled probe specific for β-galactosidase.  Wild-type bacterial colonies are found to contain only trace quantities of β-galactosidase.  However, the mutant colonies express significant amounts of β-galactosidase.  Further analysis reveals that the variant strain contains a mutation that inhibits the binding of a certain protein to its regulatory sequence.  In which of the following locations did this mutation most likely occur?

A) Activator protein (CAP) binding site
B) Operator locus
C) Promoter region
D) Activator protein (CAP) gene
E) RNA polymerase cistron

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