TY - JOUR SN - 1469-3178 A1 - Waksman, G UR - https://doi.org/10.15252/embr.201847012 Y1 - 2019/01/02/ ID - discovery10065849 JF - EMBO Reports TI - From conjugation to T4S systems in Gram-negative bacteria: a mechanistic biology perspective N1 - This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article?s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ N2 - Conjugation is the process by which bacteria exchange genetic materials in a unidirectional manner from a donor cell to a recipient cell. The discovery of conjugation signalled the dawn of genetics and molecular biology. In Gram-negative bacteria, the process of conjugation is mediated by a large membrane-embedded machinery termed "conjugative type IV secretion (T4S) system", a large injection nanomachine, which together with a DNA-processing machinery termed "the relaxosome" and a large extracellular tube termed "pilus" orchestrates directional DNA transfer. Here, the focus is on past and latest research in the field of conjugation and T4S systems in Gram-negative bacteria, with an emphasis on the various questions and debates that permeate the field from a mechanistic perspective. VL - 2018 AV - public KW - DNA and Protein Secretion KW - bacterial conjugation KW - pilus biogenesis KW - relaxosome KW - type IV secretion system ER -