A science-based animation made in collaboration with Ruochen Ouyang and Dr. Ariane Briegel and from the Institute of Biology in Leiden. This work accompanies the paper “High-resolution reconstruction of a Jumbo-bacteriophage infecting capsulated bacteria using hyperbranched tail fibers" by Ouyang et. al. (2022), as published in Nature Communications.
This animation stars the recently described jumbo myophage ϕKp24, which is also unofficially known as a “flowerphage” due to the bouquet-like appearance of its tail fibers. The animation demonstrates the configurational changes that its fibers undergo upon infection of its host, the bacteria Klebsiella pneumonia.
The animation demonstrates the reconfiguration of the tail fibers in different stages. In its free-floating stage the fibers maintain a near-spherical arrangement around the base. However, when the phage attaches to its host, the fibers rearrange along the host’s surface in a flat “tail-plate” configuration (Ouyang et al.)
Fun fact: the animations from this paper are my first published animations :)
Except where otherwise noted this work is protected underhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
References:
Ouyang, R., Costa, A.R., Cassidy, C.K. et al. High-resolution reconstruction of a Jumbo-bacteriophage infecting capsulated bacteria using hyperbranched tail fibers. Nat Commun 13, 7241 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34972-5
