Which parts of a bacterial virus would not enter a cell? Which part does?

Answer 1

Nucleic acid (DNA) of a bacteriophage enters the bacterium and the tailpiece and capsule do not enter.

Answer 2

Well everyone seems to think that a virus is a living thing when it is in fact not. A virus is simply a capsule that holds a relatively small strand of DNA in it. If you go online and look up a "phage" it kinda looks like a syringe with spider legs, and that is exactly how it works. When it finds a bacteria cell, it "lands" on it, and literally injects the small strand of DNA into the bacteria. Because bacteria transcribe and translate their DNA in the cytoplasm, Ribosomes treat the viral DNA (or RNA, but that has quite a few more steps involved in it) as its own and much to their dismay they end up copying it. When they copy it, they end up assembling more of these phages (the syringe with spider legs) that are released outside of the cell exponentially.

In the case of a virus releasing RNA into the bacteria, the virus must also inject something called reverse transcriptase. The reason for this is because you cannot and do not produce DNA from RNA (it's usually the other way around) so the bacteria would have no means by which it could reproduce the virus. So instead, the reverse transcriptase polymerizes the DNA from the RNA, and then the DNA that it just made is used by THE BACTERIA to make more viral DNA.

After injecting the DNA or RNA, the capsule just falls off because it no longer serves a purpose.