In this study we demonstrate that overexpression of E. coli udk allows transcription from early T7 promoters to continue late in infection, thus mimicking infections that occur in the absence of Gp2 function, i.e. when E. coli cells are infected by gene 2 mutant T7 phage or cells whose RNAp carries lesions in the Gp2-binding β′ jaw domain is infected by the wild-type T7 phage (Savalia et al., 2010). Here, GP2 is linked to infection.