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.