Journal article
The architecture and stabilisation of flagellotropic tailed bacteriophages
JM Hardy, RA Dunstan, R Grinter, MJ Belousoff, J Wang, D Pickard, H Venugopal, G Dougan, T Lithgow, F Coulibaly
Nature Communications | Published : 2020
Abstract
Flagellotropic bacteriophages engage flagella to reach the bacterial surface as an effective means to increase the capture radius for predation. Structural details of these viruses are of great interest given the substantial drag forces and torques they face when moving down the spinning flagellum. We show that the main capsid and auxiliary proteins form two nested chainmails that ensure the integrity of the bacteriophage head. Core stabilising structures are conserved in herpesviruses suggesting their ancestral origin. The structure of the tail also reveals a robust yet pliable assembly. Hexameric rings of the tail-tube protein are braced by the N-terminus and a β-hairpin loop, and intercon..
View full abstractRelated Projects (1)
Grants
Awarded by National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank Iain Hay for expert assistance with artwork. Cryo-EM imaging was performed at the Ramaciotti Center for Cryo-Electron Microscopy at Monash University. We acknowledge the Australian Synchrotron for access to beamlines MX1 and MX2 for X-ray crystallographic analysis (CAP11027) and SAXS-WAXS for X-ray solution scattering (M12480), the Monash Molecular Crystallisation Facility for their assistance crystallographic screening and optimisation, and the MASSIVE HPC facility for computing resources. Research was supported by Programme Grant 1092262 from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC). R.G. was a Sir Henry Wellcome Fellow (106077/Z/14/Z), T.L. was an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow (FL130100038), F.C. was an Australian Research Council Future Fellow (FT0100893).