Table 2. Bacterial strains and plasmids used in this study.

Species or plasmids	Source/Reference	Genotype/Features
Bacterial strains
E. coli BW25113/pKD46a	CGSC 7739/ [25]	F- lacI+ rrnBT14 ΔlacZWJ16 hsdR514
		ΔaraBADAH33 ΔrhaBADLD78
E. coli MTea1	This study	F- lacI+ rrnBT14 ΔlacZWJ16 hsdR514
		ΔaraBADAH33 ΔrhaBADLD78 Δ(rnpA)::cat
Proteus mirabilis b	Smith College Collection
Pseudomonas aeruginosa b	ATCC 10145
Acinetobacter baumannii b	ATCC 17978D
Neisseria gonorrhoeae b	ATCC 700825D
Bacillus subtilis b	Smith College Collection
Streptococcus oralis b	ATCC 9811
Staphylococcus aureus b	Smith College Collection
Thermotoga maritima MSB8b	[23]
Salmonella typhimurium TT23216c	John Roth
Plasmids
pCA24Nd	JW 36815/ [24]
pSAVE	This study	Gmr; Ampr; rnpA and GFP expression
pSWAP-Ece	This study	Kanr; E. coli rnpA expression
pSWAP-Pme	This study	Kanr; P. mirabilis rnpA expression
pSWAP-Pae	This study	Kanr; P. aeruginosa rnpA expression
pSWAP-Abe	This study	Kanr; A. baumannii rnpA expression
pSWAP-Nge	This study	Kanr; N. gonorrhoaea rnpA expression
pSWAP-Bse	This study	Kanr; B. subtilis rnpA expression
pSWAP-Soe	This study	Kanr; S. oralis rnpA expression
pSWAP-Sae	This study	Kanr; S. aureus rnpA expression
pSWAP-Tme	This study	Kanr; T. maritima rnpA expression

^a E. coli host for the rnpA knockout protocol; acquired from E. coli Genetic Stock Center, Yale, USA.

^bused for amplification of the rnpA gene.

^ctemplate for the amplification of the antibiotic cassette for the gene inactivation protocol; provided by John Roth, University of California, Davis, USA.

^dtemplate for the gfp amplification.

^eHeterologous complementation plasmids.