Correction to: Nature Communications https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07144-7; published online 22 November 2018

The original version of this Article contained an error in Fig. 4. In the lower part of the three gene circuit diagrams in panel b, the flat-headed arrow linking lambdaCI to the tetR promoter incorrectly pointed to the tetR gene body. This has now been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of this Article.