The lysis of cells in order to extract the nucleic acids or proteins inside it is a crucial unit
operation in biomolecular analysis. This paper presents a critical evaluation of the various …

Molecular genetic research on bacteriophage lambda carried out during its golden age from
the mid-1950s to mid-1980s was critically important in the attainment of our current …

A string of nucleotides confined within a protein capsid contains all the instructions
necessary to make a functional virus particle, a virion. Although the structure of the protein …

We review approaches aimed at deciphering the physical mechanisms responsible for viral
structure and assembly. We discuss the basic principles of condensed matter physics …

Sixty years after Hershey and Chase showed that nucleic acid is the major component of
phage particles that is ejected into cells, we still do not fully understand how the process …

The main functions of viral capsids are to protect, transport and deliver their genome. The
mechanical properties of capsids are supposed to be adapted to these tasks. Bacteriophage …

The mechanical properties of DNA play a critical role in many biological functions. For
example, DNA packing in viruses involves confining the viral genome in a volume (the viral …

Tailed dsDNA bacteriophage virions bind to susceptible cells with the tips of their tails and
then deliver their DNA through the tail into the cells to initiate infection. This chapter …

We report the cryo-EM structure of bacteriophage lambda and the mechanism for stabilizing
the 20-Å-thick capsid containing the dsDNA genome. The crystal structure of the HK97 …

Molecular motors drive genome packaging into preformed procapsids in many double-
stranded (ds) DNA viruses. Here, we present optical tweezers measurements of single DNA …