Understanding antibiotic resistance
2.2 Conjugation
In the process of conjugation, plasmids are transferred between two contacting bacteria via a hollow tube or pilus (Figure 7).
Figure 7 The process of conjugation. (a) A hollow pilus connects two bacteria and plasmid DNA is transferred from the donor bacterium to the recipient. (b) Scanning-electron micrograph of two bacteria attached by pili.
Since antibiotic resistance genes are often located on plasmids, conjugation can result in the transfer of antibiotic resistance from one bacterium to another.
OpenLearn - Understanding antibiotic resistance
Except for third party materials and otherwise, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence, full copyright detail can be found in the acknowledgements section. Please see full copyright statement for details.