How viruses infect bacteria?

Viruses are minuscule infectious particles composed of a protein coat and a nucleic acid core. They exist in a huge variety of forms and infect practically all living creatures: animals, plants, insects and bacteria. Insight into the infection process could facilitate new therapeutic strategies for viral and bacterial diseases as well as food preservation. An article by Aksyuk et al (2009) published in this issue sheds light on the still mysterious infection process. It reports the first crystal structure of a significant portion of the bacteriophages T4 tail sheath protein. Together with fittings into existing cryo-EM reconstructions, it suggests a mechanism of genome delivery into the host cell for the Myoviridae phages