title: Identifying the assembly pathway of cyanophage inside the marine bacterium using electron cryo-tomography.
abstract: Advances in electron cryo-tomography open up a new avenue to visualize the 3-D internal structure of a single bacterium before and after its infection by bacteriophages in its native environment, without using chemical fixatives, fluorescent dyes or negative stains. Such direct observation reveals the presence of assembly intermediates of the bacteriophage and thus allows us to map out the maturation pathway of the bacteriophage inside its host.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Macromolecular Imaging, Verna and Marrs Mclean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030 USA.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.affiliation: National Center for Macromolecular Imaging, Verna and Marrs Mclean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030 USA.
authors.forename: Michael F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Schmid
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA.
authors.forename: Jonathan A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: King
authors.affiliation: National Center for Macromolecular Imaging, Verna and Marrs Mclean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030 USA.
authors.forename: Wah
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chiu
keywords: 3-D structures; Zernike phase optics; electron cryo-tomography; marine cyanobacterium; phage assembly intermediates; transient biological processes