Figure 1.

Schematic diagram of the splice transfer of plasmids from donor cells to recipient cells. The tra regions encode all genes involved in conjugational transfer (green); the origin of transfer oriT (yellow); the leading gene (red) is the first to be transferred into the recipient cell; Other Tra proteins (TraI, TraM, and TraY) constitute the relaxosome, which, in combination with the integration host factor (IHF), binds to oriT; chromosomal single-strand binding protein SSB; the leading region contains a specific 328 bp Frpo region (for F plasmid RNA polymerase).