Filamentous bacteriophage contract into hollow spherical particles upon exposure to a chloroform-water interface |
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Authors: | Jack Griffith Marcia Manning Kathi Dunn |
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Institution: | Cancer Researcher Center and Departments of Bacteriology and Immunology and Biochemistry and Nutrition University of North Carolina School of Medicine Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514 USA |
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Abstract: | The bacteriophage M13 is a 1 μm long filament consisting of a circular single-stranded DNA loop firmly held within a tubular protein capsid. We report here that exposure to a chloroform-water interface initiates a 20 fold contraction of each filament into a hollow protein sphere. In these 0.04 μm diameter particles, termed M13 “spheroids,” two thirds of the DNA is apparently extruded through a hole in the wall of the spheroid; the portion of DNA remaining inside the shell centers about the origins of M13 DNA replication. These results suggest that the filament, upon exposure to a membrane environment, undergoes an ordered change whereby the DNA is released into the cell and the coat protein is changed to a form more easily solubilized by the membrane lipids. |
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