Bacterial conjugation and its deployment for diverse biotechnology applications

Conjugation has emerged as an attractive tool in synthetic biology by delivering designed genetic circuits to diverse microbes simultaneously without isolation. Insights into conjugative machinery have enabled the repurposing of these systems to deliver genetic circuits and metabolic pathways. By selecting appropriate donor strains and conjugation systems, researchers can now flexibly define the range of target species to be engineered or controlled. Furthermore, integration of conjugation with diverse synthetic biology strategies has begun to expand and newly explore this research space through applications such as novel microbial chassis identification, consortium monitoring, bioremediation, and selective killing. In this review, we highlight recent advances at the interface of conjugation and synthetic biology and propose practical guidelines for researchers aiming to exploit conjugative transfer.