Transcriptional response to defective lipoprotein biogenesis in an lnt mutant

Lipoproteins play important roles in biogenesis of the Gram-negative cell envelope. The conserved enzyme Lnt is important for adding the final acyl chain during lipoprotein maturation. In an lnt mutant, lipoprotein biogenesis is impaired. We postulated that the lnt mutant could be used as a tool to investigate cellular stress responses caused by defects in lipoprotein maturation. We therefore assessed whether or not the loss of Lnt is sufficient to alter normal patterns of gene expression by performing RNA-seq on the lnt mutant and its wild-type parent strain.