Recently, we observed that 99% of the sequences in our RNA-seq data corresponded to the E. coli genome. Despite multiple DNAse treatments after RNA extraction and ribosomal depletion, we were unable to eliminate the genomic E. coli contamination. We designed a primer targeting a highly abundant E. coli gene present in our RNA-seq data and checked for contamination after each step and reagent. We discovered that the RNase inhibitor from A&A Biotechnology was the source of the contamination. Therefore, I highly recommend against using this product for RNA-seq experiments.