More specialized vectors have been engineered to use aspects of plasmids and bacteriophages, such as the plasmid-bacteriophage h hybrids known as cosmids

质粒和噬菌体已经在很多种类的细菌中被使用来表达基因，并且一些噬菌体也许已经被用来将DNA整合到宿主基因组上。