How does bacteriophage attachment to cell wall work?

[Monkeymaniac]

So for eukaryotes, virus's antigen recognizes cell membrane's chemical receptors, most likely glycoproteins. But bacteria cell is surrounded by cell wall instead.

1) So does cell wall of bacteria have glycoproteins like those on eukaryotic cell membrane? and is this how bacteriophage recognizes which cell to attach to?

2) Or is the attachement for bacteriophage non-specific?

Thanks in advance!

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[lorenzomicron]

So for eukaryotes, virus's antigen recognizes cell membrane's chemical receptors, most likely glycoproteins. But bacteria cell is surrounded by cell wall instead.

1) So does cell wall of bacteria have glycoproteins like those on eukaryotic cell membrane? and is this how bacteriophage recognizes which cell to attach to?

2) Or is the attachement for bacteriophage non-specific?

Thanks in advance!

both.

 

[crazyasian]

Depends on the bacteriophage, some are very specific to a protein, others will bind to alot of different type of proteins. I'd imagine for the Mcat you won't need to know too much detail on that. Also bacteriophages and viruses can bind to many different things. Some bind to glycoproteins, lipopolysaccharides, flagella, and others bind to several different things. It really depends on the virus.