title: The bacteriophage T4 DNA injection machine.
abstract: The tail of bacteriophage T4 consists of a contractile sheath surrounding a rigid tube and terminating in a multiprotein baseplate, to which the long and short tail fibers of the phage are attached. Upon binding of the fibers to their cell receptors, the baseplate undergoes a large conformational switch, which initiates sheath contraction and culminates in transfer of the phage DNA from the capsid into the host cell through the tail tube. The baseplate has a dome-shaped sixfold-symmetric structure, which is stabilized by a garland of six short tail fibers, running around the periphery of the dome. In the center of the dome, there is a membrane-puncturing device, containing three lysozyme domains, which disrupts the intermembrane peptidoglycan layer during infection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, 915 West State Street, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-2054, USA. mgr@indiana.bio.purdue.edu
authors.forename: Michael G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Rossmann
authors.forename: Vadim V
authors.initials: VV
authors.lastname: Mesyanzhinov
authors.forename: Fumio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Arisaka
authors.forename: Petr G
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Leiman
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D017122:Bacteriophage T4 / Q000737:chemistry*; D020285:Cryoelectron Microscopy; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D005814:Genes, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D046911:Macromolecular Substances; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017376:Viral Tail Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D046911:Macromolecular Substances; D017376:Viral Tail Proteins