I am really excited to share that our paper on phage N4 lysis is now published in the Journal of Bacteriology!
Phages end every infection by breaking their host cell open. N4 is unusual: under the right conditions it holds off on lysis for hours, a state called lysis inhibition, and releases far more phage per cell as a result. In this paper we defined the proteins N4 uses to lyse E. coli: a SAR endolysin–holin system with its spanins. We showed that this lysis cassette is enough to bring on lysis inhibition when phages are dense, and we mapped regions of the genome, inside and outside the cassette, that are involved in it.
This was a massive team effort, and I am so grateful to everyone who worked on it: my co-first author Cody Martin, Jake Chamblee, Adam Tomaszewski, Teresa Sullivan, Qori Emilia, Steven Tran, Jason Snowden, Kaylyn Niemiec and Jiatong Zhu, and my mentor, Dr. Jolene Ramsey. Thank you all for your hard work.
There is more coming. We are now working out how N4 decides when to lyse, and I am excited to share that work soon.