Abstract
DNA is wound tightly into phage heads in such a way that it tends to form layers concentric with the rigid protein shell. In P22 and wild-type lambda, DNA completely fills the internal volume, with a highly uniform local packing of adjacent segments; in lambda deletion mutants containing less than a full genome, the local packing distance increases correspondingly.
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Earnshaw, W., Harrison, S. DNA arrangement in isometric phage heads. Nature 268, 598–602 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1038/268598a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/268598a0
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