ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Structural remodeling of bacteriophage T4 and host membranes during infection initiation.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 136 papers.
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Who cites it
136 citing papers in PubMed.
- Conformational changes of the baseplate regulating tail contraction of Staphylococcus phage 812.The EMBO journal · 2026Article
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- Stepwise firing mechanism of an extracellular contractile injection system.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Structural atlas of the intact jumbo phage phiKZ.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Phage Frontiers: Genomic and Functional Profiling of Novel Virulent Agents Targeting FoodborneBiology · 2026Article
- Rage against the mean: a perspective on measuring fitness of individual phage particles.Npj viruses · 2026Review
- Role of the C-terminal modules of Klebsiella phage KP32 receptor-binding protein gp38 in protein and phage functionality.PLoS pathogens · 2026Article
- Periplasmic gatekeeping of phage DNA entry by an rSAM enzyme matured effector with HxS repeats.Nature communications · 2026Article
- In situ structures of the portal-neck-tail complex of bacteriophage T4 inform a viral genome positioning mechanism.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Discrete long-range on-cell motion of bacteriophage T4.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Structure of a Brochothrix thermosphacta bacteriophage reveals cell wall adsorption mechanism in Gram-positive infecting siphophages.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Host-specificity and therapeutic potential of novel Escherichia coli-targeting bacteriophages for bovine mastitis control.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Cryo-EM structure of bacteriophage Bas63 reveals structural conservation and diversity in theScience advances · 2025Article
- Structural basis of bacteriophage Ur-lambda infection initiation.Science advances · 2025Article
- Structural characterization of an extracellular contractile injection system from Photorhabdus luminescens in extended and contracted states.Nature communications · 2025Article
- The spike tip protein of bacteriophage T4.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Cryo-EM and cryo-ET reveal the molecular architecture and host interactions of mycobacteriophage Douge.Cell reports · 2025Article
- A dinoflagellate-infecting giant virus with a micron-length tail.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
76 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The first stages of productive bacteriophage infections of bacterial host cells require efficient adsorption to the cell surface followed by ejection of phage DNA into the host cytoplasm. To achieve this goal, a phage virion must undergo significant structural remodeling. For phage T4, the most obvious change is the contraction of its tail. Here, we use skinny E. coli minicells as a host, along with cryo-electron tomography and mutant phage virions, to visualize key structural intermediates during initiation of T4 infection. We show for the first time that most long tail fibers are folded back against the tail sheath until irreversible adsorption, a feature compatible with the virion randomly walking across the cell surface to find an optimal site for infection. Our data confirm that tail contraction is triggered by structural changes in the baseplate, as intermediates were found with remodeled baseplates and extended tails. After contraction, the tail tube penetrates the host cell periplasm, pausing while it degrades the peptidoglycan layer. Penetration into the host cytoplasm is accompanied by a dramatic local outward curvature of the cytoplasmic membrane as it fuses with the phage tail tip. The baseplate hub protein gp27 and/or the ejected tape measure protein gp29 likely form the transmembrane channel for viral DNA passage into the cell cytoplasm. Building on the wealth of prior biochemical and structural information, this work provides new molecular insights into the mechanistic pathway of T4 phage infection.
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