Architecture et Fonction des Macromolécules Biologiques (AFMB), UMR 6098 CNRS, and Universités Aix-Marseille I & II, Campus de Luminy, Case 932, 13288 Marseille Cedex 09, France.
Microbiol Mol Biol Rev. 2011 Sep;75(3):423-33, first page of table of contents. doi: 10.1128/MMBR.00014-11.
Bacteriophages belonging to the order Caudovirales possess a tail acting as a molecular nanomachine used during infection to recognize the host cell wall, attach to it, pierce it, and ensure the high-efficiency delivery of the genomic DNA to the host cytoplasm. In this review, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the various proteins constituting tailed bacteriophages from a structural viewpoint. To this end, we had in mind to pinpoint the resemblances within and between functional modules such as capsid/tail connectors, the tails themselves, or the tail distal host recognition devices, termed baseplates. This comparison has been extended to bacterial machineries embedded in the cell wall, for which shared molecular homology with phages has been recently revealed. This is the case for the type VI secretion system (T6SS), an inverted phage tail at the bacterial surface, or bacteriocins. Gathering all these data, we propose that a unique ancestral protein fold may have given rise to a large number of bacteriophage modules as well as to some related bacterial machinery components.
噬菌体属于长尾病毒目，它们的尾巴充当分子纳米机器，在感染过程中用于识别宿主细胞壁，附着在细胞壁上，刺穿细胞壁，并确保基因组 DNA 高效递送至宿主细胞质。在这篇综述中，我们从结构角度对构成长尾噬菌体的各种蛋白质进行了全面分析。为此，我们旨在确定壳/尾连接物、尾巴本身或称为基板的尾部远端宿主识别装置等功能模块内和模块之间的相似性。这种比较已经扩展到嵌入细胞壁的细菌机器，最近发现噬菌体与这些细菌机器具有共享的分子同源性。这种情况适用于位于细菌表面的反转噬菌体尾部的 VI 型分泌系统 (T6SS) 或细菌素。收集所有这些数据后，我们提出一个独特的祖先蛋白折叠可能产生了大量的噬菌体模块以及一些相关的细菌机器组件。
