ASSEMBLY AND STRUCTURE OF BACTERIOPHAGE LAMBDA

dsDNA噬菌体为在分子水平上研究生物组装原理提供了无与伦比的资源。本文建议利用大肠杆菌噬菌体lambda和HK97继续研究这些问题。具体的兴趣包括HK97头部的组装，重点是在噬菌体lambda尾的DNA包装组装过程中发生的衣壳蛋白的广泛构象重排，重点是新发现的尾巴长度模板组装中的伙伴介导步骤，以及lambda长尾纤维的组装和结构。本研究获得的信息将推广到噬菌体之外，因此将影响我们对动物和植物病毒组装过程的理解，这是抗病毒干预的可能点。

The dsDNA bacteriophages provide an unparalleled resources for investigating the principles of biological assembly at the molecular level. This is a proposal to continue the study of these problems using the E. coli bacteriophages lambda and HK97. Specific interests include assembly of the heads of HK97, with an emphasis on the extensive conformational rearrangement in the capsid protein that happens during DNA packaging assembly of the phage lambda tail, with an emphasis on a newly discovered chaperone-mediated step in assembly of the tail length template, and assembly and structure of the lambda long tail fibers. Information gained in this study will be generalizable beyond bacteriophages and will therefore affect our understanding of, among others, assembly processes in animal and plant viruses, which are possible points for anti-viral intervention.