Collateral effects of deletion of nlpD on rpoS and rpoS-dependent genes

To the Editor: A seminal article, titled "Active bacterial modification of the host environment through RNA polymerase II inhibition," was published in the JCI in February 2021 (1). [...]since nlpD is complicated, as marginally referred to in Supplemental Figure 5 in the article by Ambite et al., we here include detailed information about nlpD. nlpD is positioned upstream of rpoS; rpoS encodes the RNA polymerase sigma factor a38 (RpoS) that regulates many genes, as shown in a recent study that identified differential expression of1044 genes between the wild-type and rpoS mutant (2). Identification of transcriptional start sites and the role of ppGpp in the expression of rpoS, the structural gene for the sigma S subunit of RNA polymerase in Escherichia coli.