Cleavage of T4 induced proteins during phage morphogenesis: characterization of peptides

Polypeptides of low mol. wt. were extracted from T4 coliphages and from Escherichia coli B cells infected with a wild type and various amber mutants of bacteriophage T₄. Six peptides were fractionated by chromatography on phosphocellulose: 3 of them were cleaved from proteins synthesized late in infection and related to phage head. The remaining 3 peptides have been shown to arise from early labelled phage induced proteins. Two of these 6 small peptide fragments were found in the head of the T₄ phage.