The regulatory region of the Escherichia coli melibiose operon contains two divergent promoters. One promoter is responsible for the expression of the melR gene, that is essential for melibiose-dependent stimulation of the second promoter. Melibiose-induced transcription from this second promoter initiates at a start point 25 bp upstream from the start codon of the melA gene, encoding an alpha-galactosidase. The nucleotide sequence covering the divergent promoters and the melR gene is reported.