How do bacteria conjugate?
Some sources say that during conjugation the doner bacterium uses "sex pili" to grasp onto the recipient bacterium, and then a "conjugation tube" is formed through which the strand of DNA is transferred from the doner to the recipient (http://www.biostudio.com/d_%20Bacterial%20Conjugat... However other sources say that the doner attaches to the recipient by its sex pilus, and the DNA is transferred through the sex pilus(http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/animations/conj... Thus the latter understanding of bacterial conjugation says that the sex pilus IS the conjugation tube. Which of these is correct?
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The good thing to remember is that the F factor allows conjucation. The F factor can be found on a plasmid or the chromosome of a bacterium.
The F factor codes for the pili that allows conjugation.
The F pilus enables an F carrying bacterium to contact an F negative bacterium and to initiate conjugation.
The F pilus does not provide the means of transport for DNA thought. It is used for recognition.
There are a series of Tra genes that actually seem to allow the transfer of DNA.
If that gives you an answer I would take it as good. This is still an area of active research. There is much more in the source I used about specific genes but they do seem to get a little iffy about stating exact actions.