∞ generated and posted on 2016.01.17 ∞
Protein projections employed to pull bacteria together so that plasmid transfer from one to the other is accomplished.
Conjugation pili, a.k.a., , are plasmid encoded, though not always by all of the plasmids that take advantage of their presence to achieve conjugation. See conjugative plasmid as well as conjugation.
Conjugation pili can serve as targets for phage adsorption and hence can be risky for bacteria and their associated plasmids to display.