Moo19 and B2: Structures of podophages with = 9 geometry and tailspikes with esterase activity.

Podophages are, by far, the least well studied of all the bacteriophages. Despite being classified together due to their short, noncontractile tails, there is a huge amount of diversity among members of this group. Of the podophages, the N4-like family is the least well studied structurally and is quite divergent from well-characterized podophages such as T7 and P22.

Phage Hunting in the High School Classroom: Phage Isolation and Characterization.

National science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education emphasizes science practices, such as hands-on learning. We describe a week-long activity where students participate in real-world scientific discovery, including "hunting" for bacteriophage in a variety of environmental samples. First, the students collect samples, then look for evidence of phage on "bait" bacteria, and finally amplify/purify the phages for further study.

A viral satellite maximizes its spread and inhibits phage by remodeling hijacked phage coat proteins into small capsids.

Phage satellites commonly remodel capsids they hijack from the phages they parasitize, but only a few mechanisms regulating the change in capsid size have been reported. Here, we investigated how a satellite from , phage-inducible chromosomal island-like element (PLE), remodels the capsid it has been predicted to steal from the phage ICP1 (Netter et al., 2021).