Mycoplasma
Mycoplasma is a genus of bacteria that, like the other members of the class Mollicutes, lack a cell wall (peptidoglycan) around their cell membrane. The absence of peptidoglycan makes them naturally resistant to antibiotics such as the beta-lactam antibiotics that target cell wall synthesis. They can be parasitic or saprotrophic.
Species
Mycoplasma
GENUS
- KingdomBacteria
- PhylumFirmicutes
- ClassBacilli
- OrderMycoplasmatales
- FamilyMycoplasmataceae
Habitatmarine
via GBIF
Key facts
- Medical condition.name
- Mycoplasmosis
- Medical condition.field
- Infectious disease
via Wikipedia infobox
Research
35,125 papersvia PubMed
~13 min read
Article
13 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Characteristics
- Important characteristics
- Cell and colony morphology
- Reproduction
- Taxonomy
- History of taxonomy
- As of 2018
- Unassigned species
- Synthetic mycoplasma genome
- See also
- References
- External links
Mycoplasma is a genus of bacteria that, like the other members of the class Mollicutes, lack a cell wall (peptidoglycan) around their cell membrane. The absence of peptidoglycan makes them naturally resistant to antibiotics such as the beta-lactam antibiotics that target cell wall synthesis. They can be parasitic or saprotrophic.
In casual speech, the name "mycoplasma" (plural mycoplasmas or mycoplasms) generally refers to all members of the class Mollicutes. In formal scientific classification, the designation Mycoplasma refers exclusively to the genus, a member of the Mycoplasmataceae, the only family in the order Mycoplasmatales (see "scientific classification"). In 2018, Mycoplasma was split with many clinically significant species moved to other genera in Mollicutes; see the page Mollicutes for an overview.