Fig. 8.

Structures and organizations of the collar complex and the tail knob. a Ribbon diagrams showing the overall organization and structure of the entire tail. Components of the tail are colored differently (connector: green, lower collar: cyan, N-extensions of tail appendages: blue, arm stems of tail appendages: yellow, tassels of tail appendages: magenta and tail knob: red). b Ribbon and shadowed-surface diagrams showing the interactions between the connector and the lower collar. The connector is shown in shadowed-surface colored by electrostatic potentials as in Fig. 5e. c Zoom-in showing the interlocked assembly of the tail appendages. Three N-terminus of each tail appendage are colored differently (N-upper: blue, N-lower-L: purple, N-lower-R: orange). The arm stems of the tail appendages are colored yellow. One connector monomer and one lower collar monomer are colored green and cyan, respectively. d Ribbon diagrams showing the tail knob structures. The hydrophobic L-loops are color red. The disordered regions of the L-loops (residues 440–455) are represented with dashed red lines. e Ribbon diagram showing the conformational change of L-loops upon genome release