Challenging packaging limits and infectivity of phage λ

Physics – Biological Physics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

Scientific paper

The terminase motors of bacteriophages have been shown to be among the strongest active machines in the biomolecular world, being able to package several tens of kilobase pairs of viral genome into a capsid within minutes. Yet these motors are hindered at the end of the packaging process by the progressive build-up of a force resisting packaging associated with already packaged DNA. In this experimental work, we raise the issue of what sets the upper limit on the length of the genome that can be packaged by the terminase motor of phage {\lambda} and still yield infectious virions, and the conditions under which this can be efficiently performed. Using a packaging strategy developed in our laboratory of building phage {\lambda} from scratch, together with plaque assay monitoring, we have been able to show that the terminase motor of phage {\lambda} is able to produce infectious particles with up to 110% of the wild-type (WT) {\lambda}-DNA length. However, the phage production rate, and thus the infectivity, decreased exponentially with increasing DNA length, and was a factor of 103 lower for the 110% {\lambda}-DNA phage. Interestingly, our in vitro strategy was still efficient in fully packaging phages with DNA lengths as high as 114% of the WT length, but these viruses were unable to infect bacterial cells efficiently. Further, we demonstrated that the phage production rate is modulated by the presence of multivalent ionic species. The biological consequences of these finding are discussed.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Challenging packaging limits and infectivity of phage λ does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Challenging packaging limits and infectivity of phage λ, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Challenging packaging limits and infectivity of phage λ will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-42257

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.