{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,14]],"date-time":"2026-09-14T10:07:08Z","timestamp":1789380428582,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":43,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,14]],"date-time":"2026-09-14T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789344000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["32430020"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["32430020"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["32430020"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["32430020"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01h0zpd94","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Major Fundamental Research Program of Hunan Province, China","award":["2025ZYJ004"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2025ZYJ004"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Viruses"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Bacteriophages are increasingly considered viable alternatives to antibiotics for controlling aquaculture pathogens, yet the structural basis of siphophage infection in aquatic bacteria remains largely unexplored. Here, we present the near-atomic-resolution cryo-electron microscopy structure of Avs-1, a siphophage infecting the freshwater aquaculture pathogen Aeromonas veronii. The capsid reconstruction at 2.98 \u00c5 and spike structure at 3.58 \u00c5 reveal a virion architecture broadly conserved among lambda-like siphophages, including an HK97-fold capsid, a canonical portal\u2013neck complex, and a tail tube composed of approximately 26 stacked hexameric rings. However, the distal tail tip exhibits pronounced specialization, assembling into a C3-symmetric tripod-like core formed by the distal tail protein, hub protein, insertion protein, and the C-terminus of the tape measure protein. The trimeric spike protein gp43 extends from this platform and adopts a \u03b2-helical scaffold with a structurally divergent distal domain (D4), highlighting the structural diversity of phage tail-tip architectures. Together, these results reveal how a largely conserved virion framework is combined with a diversified distal tail apparatus, expanding the structural repertoire of characterized siphophages and providing a framework for investigating the molecular basis of phage\u2013host interactions.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/v18091011","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,14]],"date-time":"2026-09-14T09:34:01Z","timestamp":1789378441000},"page":"1011","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Cryo-EM Structure of Siphophage Avs-1 Reveals a Conserved Virion Architecture with a Specialized Tripod-like Tail Tip for Host Recognition"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"18","author":[{"given":"Jiayi","family":"Liu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory for Matter Microstructure and Function of Hunan Province, School of Physics and Electronics, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China"},{"name":"Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"writing-original-draft","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"investigation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"software","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"visualization","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Chen","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Microbial Molecular Biology, College of Life Science, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"visualization","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-original-draft","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Xiaorong","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory for Matter Microstructure and Function of Hunan Province, School of Physics and Electronics, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China"},{"name":"Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"software","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"visualization","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0006-5506-9218","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Fan","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory for Matter Microstructure and Function of Hunan Province, School of Physics and Electronics, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China"},{"name":"Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"conceptualization","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"funding-acquisition","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"investigation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-original-draft","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Hongrong","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory for Matter Microstructure and Function of Hunan Province, School of Physics and Electronics, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China"},{"name":"Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"conceptualization","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"funding-acquisition","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"resources","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"software","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-original-draft","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bartie, K.L., and Desbois, A.P. 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