Analysis of gene expression data related to assimilation and biosynthesis of nitrogen-containing compounds amino acids, peptides, and nucleotides was used to monitor availability of these nutrients to Escherichia coli MG1655 growing on Luria-Bertani medium. The data indicate that free amino acids and nucleotides only transiently support the nitrogen requirement for growth and are no longer available by 3.5 h of fermentation. The resulting shortage of available nitrogen sources induces the Ntr response, which involves induction of the glnALG, glnK-amtB, dppABCDF, and oppABCDF operons as well as the genes coding for outer membrane proteins, porins OmpA and OmpC, and proteases OmpP and OmpT. The increased uptake of peptides facilitated by the products of dppABCDF, oppABCDF, ompA, ompC, ompP, and ompT alleviates nitrogen limitation of the growth.