trans-Translation is a vital pathway in bacteria that rescues ribosomes stalled on damaged RNA during protein synthesis. ArfB is an alternative rescue pathway to trans-translation found in E. coli and harbored within an operon following a gene referred to as yaeQ. Although yaeQ is an unclassified protein, it is believed to be a nuclease. ArfB may be co-expressed in the same operon as yaeQ to cope with nuclease activity on RNA performed by yaeQ.