Bacteriophage assembly pathway

Kikuchi, Y., and King,J. (1975). Genetic control of bacteriophage T4 baseplate morphogenesis. III. Formation of the central plug and overall assembly pathway./. Mol. Biol. 99, 695-716. 

While it is easy to visualize the assembly of oligomeric proteins, it is not as easy to imagine how complex objects such as eukaryotic cilia (Fig. 1-8) or the sarcomeres of muscle (Fig. 19-6) are formed. However, study of the assembly of bacteriophage particles and other small biological objects has led to the concepts of self-assembly and assembly pathways, concepts that are now applied to every aspect of the architecture of cells. 

Fig. 5). This has revealed a number of features that differentiate the procapsid from the capsid and emphasize the similarities between its assembly pathway and that of certain tailed bacteriophages. The overall dimensions of the HSV-1 procapsid are similar to those of the mature capsid, and the capsid shell contains recognizable pentons, hexons, and triplexes organized in the same T=16 symmetry (Trus et al, 1996). 

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