Illustration of bacteriophages (purple) infecting a bacterial cell. Bacteriophages, or phages, infect a bacterium by attaching to its surface (blue) and injecting genetic material (brown) into the cell. The viral genetic material then hijacks the bacterium's own cellular machinery, forcing it to produce more copies of the bacteriophage. When a sufficient number have been produced, the phages burst out of the cell, killing it. This image also shows internal components of the bacterial cell such as the mesosome (stacked green layers), nucleoid (purple coils), plasmid (pink ring) and ribosomes (small green spheres). For a labelled version of this image, please see image F032/8835.