E. coli MazF does not create specialized ribosomes that translate leaderless mRNAs, but instead blocks rRNA maturation and ribosome biogenesis [RNA-seq]

The purpose of this experiment was to characterize MazF cleavage specificity and locations of cleavage genome-wide in E. coli and also identify any leaderless transcripts .To do this, MazF was expressed in a ΔmazF background and compared to an empty vector. rRNA-subtracted samples were used to assess cleavage in the mRNA, and total RNA samples were used to assess changes in the rRNA. Two replicates of + MazF samples and empty vector samples after 5 minutes of induction (rRNA subtracted), two replicates of + MazF and empty vector samples after 5, 30 and 60 minutes (total RNA).