Small peptides often remain unannotated at the time of bacterial sequencing projects [20, 21]. However, many such peptides have been shown to play a major role in bacterial physiology. Analysis of the clo chromosomal region of B. cereus ATCC 14579 revealed the presence of a 78 bp ORF between a putative PlcR box and the clo gene (Fig. 1a). This ORF, starting with an ATG codon, was predicted to encode a 26-amino acid peptide and was called pep1. It was preceded by a typical ribosome binding site at an appropriate distance.