Bacteriophage enzymes destroy the bacterial cell wall from both outside and inside by hydrolyzing carbohydrate and protein components. All these proteins protect phage genetic material, secure injection of the phage nucleic acid into the bacterial cell, and promote phage propagation.

Phages and their biology There are an estimated 1031 phage particles on the planet [3], an impossibly large number that translates into approximately a trillion phages for every grain of sand in the world.

The bacteriophage T4 capsid is an elongated icosahedron, 120 nm long and 86 nm wide, and is built with three essential proteins; gp23*, which forms the hexagonal capsid lattice, gp24*, which forms pentamers at eleven of the twelve vertices, and gp20, which forms the unique dodecameric portal vertex through which DNA …

The lytic cycle, which is also referred to as the “reproductive cycle” of the bacteriophage, is a six-stage cycle. The six stages are: attachment, penetration, transcription, biosynthesis, maturation, and lysis.

These stages include attachment, penetration, uncoating, biosynthesis, maturation, and release. Bacteriophages have a lytic or lysogenic cycle.

: an intracellular form of a bacteriophage in which it is harmless to the host, is usually integrated into the hereditary material of the host, and reproduces when the host does.

Lysogeny, or the lysogenic cycle, is one of two cycles of viral reproduction (the lytic cycle being the other). Lysogeny is characterized by integration of the bacteriophage nucleic acid into the host bacterium’s genome or formation of a circular replicon in the bacterial cytoplasm.

Lysogenic phages incorporate their nucleic acid into the chromosome of the host cell and replicate with it as a unit without destroying the cell. Under certain conditions lysogenic phages can be induced to follow a lytic cycle.

The simplest virions consist of two basic components: nucleic acid (single- or double-stranded RNA or DNA) and a protein coat, the capsid, which functions as a shell to protect the viral genome from nucleases and which during infection attaches the virion to specific receptors exposed on the prospective host cell.

Every time someone coughs or sneezes, tiny germ-laden droplets of moisture fly through the air. They can travel up to six feet and often land on other people or surfaces that people may touch. Sometimes, rarely, the remnants of these droplets linger in the air for hours, and people may breathe them in.

On the skin surface, rod and round bacteria — such as Proteobacteria and Staphylococcus spp., respectively — form communities that are deeply intertwined among themselves and other microorganisms. Commensal fungi such as Malassezia spp. grow both as branching filamentous hypha and as individual cells.