Structural diversification of phage tail fibers enables recognition of diverse type IV pili.

Phages adapt to diverse Pseudomonas aeruginosa type IV pili through modular tail fiber diversification, enabling infection despite extensive pilin variation.

• Why it matters: Understanding how viruses overcome rapidly evolving host receptors is crucial for insights into viral persistence and host-pathogen coevolution, especially in bacterial systems.
• What they did: The study used comparative genomics, structural modeling, and functional analyses of 2,000+ phages to examine tail fiber architectures and their ability to recognize diverse pilins with variable surface chemistry.
• The result: Findings reveal that modular tail fiber diversification allows phages to tolerate receptor variation, with structurally conserved C-terminal domains conferring broader host recognition, facilitating infection of highly divergent pilins.