NusG is a universally conserved transcription elongation factor that stimulates RNA polymerase pausing throughout the Bacillus subtilis genome. The 5' leaders of formate and putative nitrite regulatory genes yrhG and forC2 contain NusG-dependent pause sites upstream of intrinsic terminators. To determine whether pausing regulates transcription of these genes, we conducted ?-Galactosidase assays in the presence of formate and nitrite to measure expression of yrhG and forC2 in wild-type, ?nusG, and pause-mutant strains of B. subtilis.