Fig. 4: φTE tail assembly in extended and contracted states.

a Depiction of extended tail reconstruction with sheath subunits shown in pale cyan and tube subunits shown in yellow. Map: EMD-45419 (3.5 Å), threshold = 0.72 (5.5 σ). b Depiction of contracted tail reconstruction with sheath subunits shown in blue. Map: EMD-45420 (3.5 Å), threshold = 0.611 (5.2 σ). c Top-down view of native and contracted tail reconstructions showing expansion in sheath radius during contraction. d Domain organization of sheath protein. Strands marked with “S” describe various strands that participate in the formation of β-strands found in the hinge β-sheet. e Overlay of extended and contracted sheath proteins, with conformational shifts annotated.