Unsuccessful transfer

Unsuccessful transfer or abortive transfer is any bacterial DNA transfer from donor cells to recipient cells that fails to be replicated during cell division. This may be due to:

Failure of the incoming DNA to form a circular molecule or to integrate into one;
Loss of a maintenance system.

As a result of the abortive transfer, among all daughter cells of the recipient cell, only one cell will be holding the transferred DNA. Genes that are located on an abortively transferred piece of DNA can still express in the recipient cell.
Abortive transfer can happen after transduction, transformation, or conjugation -- all of the three main types of genetic exchange in bacteria. Abortive transduction is especially frequent.

Dictionary definition

Rieger, Michaelis, and Green, in 1976 stated: