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Review
. 2011 Aug 12;9(9):647-57.
doi: 10.1038/nrmicro2632.

The DNA-packaging nanomotor of tailed bacteriophages

Sherwood R Casjens  1
Affiliations
Review

The DNA-packaging nanomotor of tailed bacteriophages

Sherwood R Casjens. Nat Rev Microbiol. .

Abstract

Tailed bacteriophages use nanomotors, or molecular machines that convert chemical energy into physical movement of molecules, to insert their double-stranded DNA genomes into virus particles. These viral nanomotors are powered by ATP hydrolysis and pump the DNA into a preformed protein container called a procapsid. As a result, the virions contain very highly compacted chromosomes. Here, I review recent progress in obtaining structural information for virions, procapsids and the individual motor protein components, and discuss single-molecule in vitro packaging reactions, which have yielded important new information about the mechanism by which these powerful molecular machines translocate DNA.

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