scholarly journals A First Model of the Dynamics of the Bacteriophage T4 Injection Machinery

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ameneh Maghsoodi ◽  
Anupam Chatterjee ◽  
Ioan Andricioaei ◽  
N. C. Perkins
Keyword(s):  
Bacteriophage T4 ◽  
Infection Process ◽  
Hydrodynamic Drag ◽  
Kirchhoff Rod ◽  
Rod Theory ◽  
Tail Assembly ◽  
Contractile Tail ◽  
Helical Protein ◽  
Important Building Block ◽  
Sheath Structure

Bacteriophage T4 is one of the most common and complex of the tailed viruses that infect host bacteria using an intriguing contractile tail assembly. Despite extensive progress in resolving the structure of T4, the dynamics of the injection machinery remains largely unknown. This paper contributes a first model of the injection machinery that is driven by elastic energy stored in a structure known as the sheath. The sheath is composed of helical strands of protein that suddenly collapse from an energetic, extended conformation prior to infection to a relaxed, contracted conformation during infection. We employ Kirchhoff rod theory to simulate the nonlinear dynamics of a single protein strand coupled to a model for the remainder of the virus, including the coupled translation and rotation of the head (capsid), neck, and tail tube. Doing so provides an important building block toward the future goal of modeling the entire sheath structure which is composed of six interacting helical protein strands. The resulting numerical model exposes fundamental features of the injection machinery including the time scale and energetics of the infection process, the nonlinear conformational change experienced by the sheath, and the contribution of hydrodynamic drag on the head (capsid).

An Approximate Model of the Dynamics of the Bacteriophage T4 Injection Machinery

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ameneh Maghsoodi ◽  
Anupam Chatterjee ◽  
Ioan Andricioaei ◽  
Noel Perkins
Keyword(s):  
Bacteriophage T4 ◽  
Approximate Model ◽  
Infection Process ◽  
Hydrodynamic Drag ◽  
Kirchhoff Rod ◽  
Rod Theory ◽  
Tail Assembly ◽  
Contractile Tail ◽  
Helical Protein ◽  
Important Building Block

Bacteriophage T4 is one of the most common and complex of the tailed viruses that infect host bacteria using an intriguing contractile tail assembly. Despite extensive progress in resolving the structure of T4, the dynamics of the injection machinery remains largely unknown. This paper contributes a first model of the injection machinery that is driven by elastic energy stored in a structure known as the sheath. The sheath is composed of helical strands of protein that suddenly collapse from an energetic, extended conformation prior to infection to a relaxed, contracted conformation during infection. We employ Kirchhoff rod theory to simulate the nonlinear dynamics of a single protein strand coupled to a model for the remainder of the virus, including the coupled translation and rotation of the head (capsid), neck and tail tube. Doing so provides an important building block towards the future goal of modeling the entire sheath structure which is composed of six interacting helical protein strands. The resulting numerical model exposes fundamental features of the injection machinery including the time scale and energetics of the infection process, the nonlinear conformational change experienced by the sheath, and the contribution of hydrodynamic drag on the head (capsid).

scholarly journals The Central Spike Complex of Bacteriophage T4 Contacts PpiD in the Periplasm of Escherichia coli

Viruses ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1135
Author(s):  
Sabrina Wenzel ◽  
Mikhail M. Shneider ◽  
Petr G. Leiman ◽  
Andreas Kuhn ◽  
Dorothee Kiefer
Keyword(s):  
Escherichia Coli ◽  
Cytoplasmic Membrane ◽  
Bacteriophage T4 ◽  
Infection Process ◽  
Host Cells ◽  
Phage Dna ◽  
Tail Structure ◽  
Contractile Tail ◽  
Periplasmic Chaperone

Infecting bacteriophage T4 uses a contractile tail structure to breach the envelope of the Escherichia coli host cell. During contraction, the tail tube headed with the “central spike complex” is thought to mechanically puncture the outer membrane. We show here that a purified tip fragment of the central spike complex interacts with periplasmic chaperone PpiD, which is anchored to the cytoplasmic membrane. PpiD may be involved in the penetration of the inner membrane by the T4 injection machinery, resulting in a DNA-conducting channel to translocate the phage DNA into the interior of the cell. Host cells with the ppiD gene deleted showed partial reduction in the plating efficiency of T4, suggesting a supporting role of PpiD to improve the efficiency of the infection process.

scholarly journals Bacteriophage T4 Self-Assembly: Localization of gp3 and Its Role in Determining Tail Length

2000 ◽  
Vol 182 (3) ◽  
pp. 680-688 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Vianelli ◽  
G. R. Wang ◽  
M. Gingery ◽  
R. L. Duda ◽  
F. A. Eiserling ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Self Assembly ◽  
High Efficiency ◽  
Bacteriophage T4 ◽  
Tail Length ◽  
Hypothetical Protein ◽  
Protein Product ◽  
Amino Acid Sequences ◽  
Tail Assembly ◽  
Infected Cells ◽  
Assembly Intermediate

ABSTRACT Gene 3 of bacteriophage T4 participates at a late stage in the T4 tail assembly pathway, but the hypothetical protein product, gp3, has never been identified in extracts of infected cells or in any tail assembly intermediate. In order to overcome this difficulty, we expressed gp3 in a high-efficiency plasmid expression vector and subsequently purified it for further analysis. The N-terminal sequence of the purified protein showed that the initial methionine had been removed. Variant C-terminal amino acid sequences were resolved by determining the cysteine content of the protein. The molecular mass of 20.6 kDa for the pure protein was confirmed by Western blotting, using a specific anti-gp3 serum for which the purified protein was the immunogen. We also demonstrated, for the first time, the physical presence of gp3 in the mature T4 phage particle and localized it to the tail tube. By finding a nonleaky, nonpermissive host for a gene 3 mutant, we could clearly demonstrate a new phenotype: the slow, aberrant elongation of the tail tube in the absence of gp3.

scholarly journals The tail sheath structure of bacteriophage T4: a molecular machine for infecting bacteria

2012 ◽  
Vol 31 (16) ◽  
pp. 3507-3507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia A Aksyuk ◽  
Petr G Leiman ◽  
Lidia P Kurochkina ◽  
Mikhail M Shneider ◽  
Victor A Kostyuchenko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bacteriophage T4 ◽  
Molecular Machine ◽  
Tail Sheath ◽  
Sheath Structure

Control of Bacteriophage T4 Tail Lysozyme Activity During the Infection Process

2005 ◽  
Vol 346 (4) ◽  
pp. 1013-1020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuji Kanamaru ◽  
Yasutaka Ishiwata ◽  
Toshiharu Suzuki ◽  
Michael G. Rossmann ◽  
Fumio Arisaka
Keyword(s):  
Bacteriophage T4 ◽  
Infection Process ◽  
Lysozyme Activity

scholarly journals From Host to Phage Metabolism: Hot Tales of Phage T4’s Takeover of E. coli

Viruses ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kutter ◽  
Daniel Bryan ◽  
Georgia Ray ◽  
Erin Brewster ◽  
Bob Blasdel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sequence Data ◽  
Bacteriophage T4 ◽  
Infection Process ◽  
E Coli ◽  
Phage T4 ◽  
Progeny Phage ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Phage Production ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Intense Research

The mechanisms by which bacteriophage T4 converts the metabolism of its E. coli host to one dedicated to progeny phage production was the subject of decades of intense research in many labs from the 1950s through the 1980s. Presently, a wide range of phages are starting to be used therapeutically and in many other applications, and also the range of phage sequence data available is skyrocketing. It is thus important to re-explore the extensive available data about the intricacies of the T4 infection process as summarized here, expand it to looking much more broadly at other genera of phages, and explore phage infections using newly-available modern techniques and a range of appropriate environmental conditions.

scholarly journals From Host to Phage Metabolism: Hot Tales of Phage T4’s Takeover of E. coli

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kutter ◽  
Daniel Bryan ◽  
Georgia Ray ◽  
Erin Brewster ◽  
Bob Blasdel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sequence Data ◽  
Bacteriophage T4 ◽  
Infection Process ◽  
E Coli ◽  
Phage T4 ◽  
Progeny Phage ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Phage Production ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Intense Research

The mechanisms by which bacteriophage T4 converts the metabolism of its E. coli host to one dedicated to progeny phage production was the subject of decades of intense research in many labs from the 1950’s through the 1980’s. At this point, a wide range of phages are starting to be used therapeutically and in many other applications and also the range of available phage sequence data is skyrocketing. It is thus important to re-explore the extensive available data about the intricacies of the T4 infection process as summarized here, expand it to looking much more broadly at other genera of phages, and explore phage infections using newly-available modern techniques and a range of appropriate environmental conditions.

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