Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a very small bacterium in the class Mollicutes. It causes the disease Mycoplasma pneumonia, a form of bacterial pneumonia.
This species lacks a peptidoglycan cell wall, like all other Molicutes. Instead, it has a cell membrane that incorporates sterol compounds, similar to eukaryotic cells. It obtains these sterols from the host serum, allowing it to retain a simple structure. Lacking a cell wall, these organisms are resi...
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Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a very small bacterium in the class Mollicutes. It causes the disease Mycoplasma pneumonia, a form of bacterial pneumonia.
This species lacks a peptidoglycan cell wall, like all other Molicutes. Instead, it has a cell membrane that incorporates sterol compounds, similar to eukaryotic cells. It obtains these sterols from the host serum, allowing it to retain a simple structure. Lacking a cell wall, these organisms are resistant to the effects of penicillins and other beta-lactam antibiotics, which act by disrupting the bacterial cell wall.
M. pneumoniae has one of the smallest genomes known, with 816 kilobase pairs (kbs). Its genome and proteome have been fully characterized. It uses some unique genetic code, making its code more similar to mitochondria than to other bacteria. Thus it is said that Mycoplasma pneumoniae has a degenerate genome. It lacks the cellular machinery for making many essential compounds, including new purines and pyrimidines. It also has...
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