Chunyan Wang, PhD

Genome entry is a critical step in bacteriophage infection. Phages in the Podoviridae family, however, have tails that are too short to span the host cell envelope, requiring the formation of a channel for the viral genome to enter the cytoplasm. They package ejection proteins inside mature phages to be ejected and then reassembled into trans-envelope channels in the host cell wall, facilitating phage genome translocation. Although different phages store their ejection proteins in mature particles in different states, all such proteins are ejected and assembled into channel structures to bridge the outer and inner membranes of the cell wall. We investigate two classic phages (T7 and P22) before and after genome ejection by combining cryo-EM and cryo-ET, aiming to reveal the structural mechanisms of ejection protein remodeling at the atomic level.