Scientists have revealed the structure of a virus infecting bacteria that thrive in 160-degree hot springs in places like Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. The discovery could lead to better-targeted delivery of drugs into cells and new DNA sequencing technology, according to a study by Rutgers and other scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The scientists studied a virus that infects bacteria (Thermus thermophilus) taken from a hot spring in Kamchatka, Russia. "We literally go 'hunting' for these viruses and bacteria they infect in hot springs in the United States, Chile, Russia, Italy, and other countries," said study co-author Konstantin Severinov, a principal investigator at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology and professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
Viruses that infect bacteria have a protein shell that forms a "head" shaped like a polyhedron with 20 triangular faces. Inside the head, the virus's DNA is packaged very tightly—almost as dense as a crystal—and under great pressure. When a virus binds to a cell that it infects, the pressure is released through a small hole, or portal, in the virus head. Then viral DNA is rapidly injected into the cell.