cut out of a concatemer is that a given linear molecule can start at any location on the circular genome. This is called a cyclical permutation. The genome is especially rich in Chi sequences recognized by the bacterial recombinase RecBCD. The genome contains two origins of replication: oriR which replicates it during the lysogenic cycle and oriL which replicates it during the lytic stage. The genome of P1 encodes three tRNAs which are expressed in the lytic stage. Proteome. The genome of P1 encodes 112 proteins and 5 untranslated genes and is this about twice the size of bacteriophage lambda. Life cycle Infection and early stages The phage particle adsorbs onto the surface of the bacterium using the tail fibers for specificity. The tail sheath contracts and the DNA of the phage is injected into the host cell. The host DNA recombination machinery or the cre enzyme translated from the viral DNA recombine the terminally redundant ends and circularize the genome. Depending on various physiological cues, the phage may immediately proceed to the lytic phase or it may enter a lysogenic state. The gene that encodes the tail fibers have a set of sequences that can be targeted by a site specific recombinase Cin. This causes the C terminal end of the protein to switch between two alternate forms at a low frequency. The viral tail fibers are responsible for the specificity of binding to the host receptor. The targets of the viral tail fibers are under a constant pressure to evolve and evade binding. This method of recombinational diversity of the tail allows the virus to keep up with the bacterium. This system has close sequence homologies to recombinational systems in the tail fibers of unrelated phages like the mu phage and the lambda phage. Lysogeny The genome of the P1 phage is maintained as a low copy number plasmid in the bacterium. The relatively large size of the plasmid requires it to keep a low copy number lest it become too large a metabolic burden while it is a lysogen. As there is usually only one copy of the plasmid per bacterial genome, the plasmid stands a high chance of not being passed to both daughter cells. The P1 plasmid combats this by several methods: The plasmid replication is tightly regulated by a RepA protein dependent mechanism. This is similar to the mechanism used by several other plasmids.