Anatomy
The virus particle consists of a head and a tail that can have tail fibers. The head contains 48,490 base pairs of double-stranded, linear DNA, with 12-base single-stranded segments at both 5' ends. These two single-stranded segments are the "sticky ends" of what is called the cos site. The cos site circularizes the DNA in the host cytoplasm. In its circular form, the phage genome therefore is 48,502 base pairs in length. The prophage exists as a linear section of DNA inserted into the host chromosome.
Read more about this topic: Lambda Phage
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“I love to see, when leaves depart,
The clear anatomy arrive,”
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“Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the world.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)