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0:00
It's a pleasure for me
to talk to you today
about respiratory mycoplasmas.
My name's Stephen Gillespie.
I'm the Sir James Black
Professor of Medicine
at the University of St. Andrews.
0:12
In this talk, I'm going to describe
these elusive, interesting,
but enigmatic organisms.
I first of all will give you a
definition of what a mycoplasma is,
and then a quick overview
of the human mycoplasmas
that are a challenge to clinicians.
I'm going to focus
most of this talk on two
important respiratory
pathogens, mycoplasma pneumoniae
and mycoplasma amphoriforme.
Then I'll speak a little bit about
the future of mycoplasma research,
and hopefully come
to some conclusions.
0:45
Mycoplasmas and related organisms
are ubiquitous in nature,
and such organisms are found widely
in humans, animals, and plants.
We don't think much
about them as clinicians
because they're very
difficult to diagnose
because of their slow growth.
Their small cells were the
first to have a whole genome
sequenced and indeed
the first organism
to be synthesized synthetically.
So they're very small
bacteria and the smallest
capable of extracellular existence.
Their genome is also small, ranging
from 0.5 of a megabit to 2.2.
They closely adhere
to cells, and they
lack a typical bacterial cell wall.
They have no peptidoglycan.
They have an interesting
evolutionary past.
Mycoplasmas are
thought to have evolved
from gram positive bacteria,
probably clostridia,
through reductive evolution.
Both pathogens and commensals
are found in human samples.
And it can be often
challenging to differentiate
whether the organisms are acting
as commensals or pathogens.
