These peptides act in part against the stringent stress response and, in a murine abscess model, they also inhibit the transcription of (p)ppGpp-metabolizing enzyme SpoT, while it was proposed that there might be other or additional mechanisms explaining their action against biofilms (Pletzer et al., 2017; Salzer et al., 2020). The gene discussed is THEMIS; the disease is abscess.