Bacterial membranes phage receptors

The first interaction between a virus and a host cell is mediated by specific attachment sites on the host-cell membrane (viral receptors) and by specific structural parts of the viral coat. In 1952 Hershey and Chase demonstrated that in a phage-bacterial system it is almost exclusively the nucleic acid of the virus that enters the cell, while the protein envelope remains on the cell surface and its removal does not affect the subsequent viral growth cycle. Gierer and Schramm (1956) and Fraenkel-Conrat et al. (1957) infected tobacco plants with the isolated RNA of tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). Shortly thereafter several laboratories reported the productive infection of cells by naked nucleic acids from a variety of viruses (see Wecker, 1962 Schaffer, 1962). These findings led to the widespread acceptance of two hypotheses ... 

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