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Updated: Apr 15, 2026

Conjugative Mating Assays for Sequence-specific Analysis of Transfer Proteins Involved in Bacterial Conjugation
Published on: January 4, 2017
Structural biology of the Gram-negative bacterial conjugation systems
Aravindan Ilangovan1, Sarah Connery1, Gabriel Waksman1
1Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology, UCL and Birkbeck, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX, UK.
Abstract:
Conjugation, the process by which plasmid DNA is transferred from one bacterium to another, is mediated by type IV secretion systems (T4SSs). T4SSs are versatile systems that can transport not only DNA, but also toxins and effector proteins. Conjugative T4SSs comprise 12 proteins named VirB1-11 and VirD4 that assemble into a large membrane-spanning exporting machine. Before being transported, the DNA substrate is first processed on the cytoplasmic side by a complex called the relaxosome. The substrate is then targeted to the T4SS for export into a recipient cell. In this review, we describe the recent progress made in the structural biology of both the relaxosome and the T4SS.
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