design: E. coli O157:H7 2705C from the fresh culture was recovered in Qiagen RNAprotect Bacteria Reagent. Extraction of total RNA was performed on QIACUBE using the RNeasy mini kit with on-column DNase digestion. Samples were subjected to rRNA depletion and cDNA libraries were prepared with the Illumina Stranded Total RNA with Ribo-Zero Plus kit (Illumina) following manufacturers instructions.