Talk:Mycoplasma

How many people are infected with mycoplasma?
Has anybody an idea of how many people are infected with mycoplasmas (e.g infections with M. pneumonia or M.hominis? I can not find any data about this. I think that this is due to the effect that, although mycoplasmas can cause respiratory and urogenital diseases, most people are chronically infected without any apparent illness (so that the illness remains clinically silent) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.58.253.57 (talk) 18:20, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * No idea if this is accurate, but a book I'm reading called The Bacteria Menace says that all of North America is. Bit odd-sounding though, isn't it? DarkestMoonlight (talk) 16:09, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Section Unmerge?
Make general characteristics new section differentiated from history?

"Resemble" bacteria?
"Mycoplasma is a genus of small microorganisms that resemble bacteria" [ph1] but, "The genus Mycoplasma is one of several genera within the class Mollicutes. Mollicutes are bacteria... "[ph2] Mollicutes=bacteria, mycoplasma=subset of mollicutes, therefore mycoplasma=bacteria, or not... ? Or "Mycoplasma is a genus of small bacterium that lack cell walls and have small genomes and low GC-content (18-40 mol%)," getting rid of "resemble"... ?--Renice 15:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Mycoplasma are a genus of bacterium that lack a cell wall and have a rather wide variety of species that are disease causing. The bacteria have an influence on, but are not limited to, sexually transmitted diseases, atypical pneumonia, and anatomical site infections.

Start grade
This article has been graded at 'start' level. What is missing? What needs to be done? Robwaldo 23:38, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Generally speaking, I'd start by reading WP:What is a good article?. More specifically, references need to be integrated (see WP:CITE), more refs are needed overall (WP:RS), and subsections probably need clarification. Images are needed (or at least an image) -- see WP:UPIMAGE for details on how; the Public Health Image Library is a good place to start looking. There's certainly more to work on, but these are the things I'd start with. -- MarcoTolo 00:49, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Mycoplasma and cancer
I would like to propose a paragraph or so re the ongoing research involving mycoplasma and cancer. Since the 1990's, scientists have been studying such an association, with the most prominent American being Lo of the Armed Services Institute of pathology, Bethesda.

At the moment, I have---in addition to Lo's seminal study---14 article abstracts demonstrating this association, both in vivo, and in the clinical setting. For example, scientists have noted a strong association between Mycoplasma hyorhinis and gastric carcinoma. I think this is significant given the fact that H.pylori is now considered a prime suspect in gastric carcinoma, and that represents one of the first associations recognized by the medical profession, of a cancer/bacterial association. [BTW, these findings represent an interesting shift from the usual and traditional cancer/virus research which has been ongoing since the 1960's].

I'd appreciate some feedback on this proposal before submitting an edit. Regards Ronsword 15:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Despite the number of papers, none of which is in a top journal, the connection between mycoplasmas and cancer is not accepted by the mainstream within the mycoplasma research community. That isn't to say it's wrong; there simply hasn't been overwhelmingly convincing evidence published. As such, I would advocate waiting for a real clincher before adding anything to the article about this. In my opinion, dedicating any space to this matter at present might give readers the wrong impression. I suspect even S.-C. Lo himself would agree. MicroProf 19:33, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

hi: Sorry. I wasn't aware that Proc Natl Acad Sci, Mol Cancer Ther, Urology, World J Gastroenteroloy, Gynecol Oncol, Microbiol Immunol as well as Peking University School of Oncology, Imperial College School of Medicine, St Mary's Hospital, London, UK, et al., were not reputable or highly regarded journals and/or sources. (FYI, please see a full list of abstract citations this link: http://members.aol.com/CAbacteria/mycoplasma.html

Just for the record, I didn't mean to convey the impression of proposing a positive correlation between Mycoplasma and cancer in the article, but simply a paragraph or a few references pointing out that an association is being investigated in a number of laboratories.Ronsword 14:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * No need to be sarcastic. I'll admit that I didn't really look at the older references, but for good reason. Nearly all of the papers on this topic that are in the best journals are quite old by now, which typically indicates that people saw something exciting but were unable to sustain that excitement by following through with truly meaningful results. And by the way, I certainly never said the journals in which the more recent material has been published are disreputable - for the most part, they're mid-level or lower in terms of quality and impact. What I offered was my opinion - and I'll restate it - that the connection between mycoplasmas and cancer is poorly established. My opinion is that if this link were sufficiently well established to warrant inclusion here, there would be more than just a sporadic stream of observations published in mostly mediocre journals. That's just me, and I hope others will chime in. If you want to go ahead and put a cautious word or two in, I won't take it out, but I don't want people to read this article and get the idea that mycoplasmas are established as a significant cause of cancer. MicroProf 18:36, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Your points are illuminating. I never realized that there were hierarchies as regards impact, follow-through, etc. in the world of peer review. I mean that sincerely. I must add, however, that I don't completely agree the follow-through issue is about scientists not being excited to continue the mycoplasma/cancer research; I think it may be more about funding, and the fear of being associated with a highly controversial area of research. The cancer bacteria debate is an old one, and has been so since the 1920's, having created very sharp schisms between what is regarded as orthodox, vs. that which is assailed as unorthodox. However, controversy or not, there is a body of real-time research, and I thought the public should at least know about it, and thus, the basis of my proposal.

If a reference were to be included re:mycoplasma research, it might be something like: "during the last decade, scientists have been exploring an association between mycoplasma and cancer. Despite a number of interesting studies, this association hasn't been clearly established, and has yet to be fully elucidated.

What do you think? Ronsword 21:51, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I guess if it's nothing more than that, no harm done, but you have to bear in mind that in this regard mycoplasmas are not special. They are one member of a long list of bacteria for which there's a small amount of evidence of association with cancer, including chlamydias, Listeria, Helicobacter, and others. And for the record, I really doubt that fear of doing controversial research (and this really wouldn't be that controversial compared to other things) is a limiting factor. Negative results are seldom reported; when reports follow the pattern that this research has followed -- a few moderately big papers followed by what I would call the "splat" sound of a few small ones -- it suggests that there are a lot of negative results we haven't heard about. MicroProf 03:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. So what you are saying is that, negative results wouldn't necessarily turn up in a Medline search? Though I have come across several papers which weren't favorable to a mycoplasma/cancer association, or were simply inconclusive; so some of that is indeed being reported. However, the impression I get is, there is simply not a lot of mycoplasma/cancer research going on---as opposed to disfavorable research not being reported---but that's my take on it. It also seems that H.pylori research seems to be commanding much of the attention as far as cancer and bacteria go, but that might be due the fact that consensus has to build around a starting candidate as far as bacteria go. Ronsword 04:17, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Is this true?
A book I'm reading says that all of North America is infected...

DarkestMoonlight (talk) 16:09, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Absolutely. We all have it...  :|    TeamZissou (talk) 22:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Unknown abbreviation "CBPP"
It says "An older name for Mycoplasma was PleuroPneumonia-Like Organisms (PPLO), referring to organisms similar to the causative agent of CBPP." However, there is no explanation of what CBPP is. I guess it's something like Community-Base Pleuropneuomnia, but I'm not sure. There's no use linking to the Wikipedia article on CBPP, which is about a radio station. Could someone please clarify? Wiki88V (talk) 18:05, 10 July 2009 (UTC) Ans: Contagious bovine pleuropneumonia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.41.109.2 (talk) 13:02, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Links to Cancer
Hi all! I am an exchange student studying at Linnaeus University in Kalmar, Sweden. My partner and I added the newest section titled "Links to Cancer" for a Wikipedia research project for our Zoonoses and Epidemiology course. Even though we read the comments about whether or not this section should be added and if it would be relevant, we decided to go ahead and edit the page. We were able to find an abundance of current research (we were a bit skeptical after reading the discussion), which gives me the impression that this is at least a little important from the medical standpoint. The amount of research papers and articles we found enabled us to make a more significant contribution to the page than previously expected. We attempted to make it clear that the possibility of a link to cancer is present, but not a certainty. Please feel free to make suggestions, add to, or tell us about corrections that need to be made and about any additional research that has been done - we are thrilled to be a part of such a great ongoing project! Leahctemple (talk) 11:11, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Hey Kids! Good to see that old time enthusiasm on WP! But listen --- you need to read, and re-read, all about weaseling; and weasel words; and see through the kind of bullshit inherent in a statement like "The exact mechanism by which the bacterium causes the changes is not yet known." or better yet, "the possibility of a link to cancer is present, but not a certainty." It's not science; it's not even journalism; it's just bullshit. I realize that most folks who turn to the Mycoplasma article are just wanting to brush up on what's old, or check in on what's new, and can easily spot this kind of boosterism and weaseling, and just ignore it. But that's not good enough; I'd like to think that some student can come and ask me about mycoplasma and I could just say "read the Wikipedia article, that's a good start." And darn it, it WOULD be except for this pseudoscience about the "link to cancer". It might all turn out to be one way or another the Answer to Cancer, but at this point, IT IS NOT, not even a known part of a possible answer with ANY degree of certainty! Funny thing is, the first time I read this article --- and I had not actually read an article specifically about mycoplasma infection since -- get this --- 1976 --- this guy really had me goin' about how mycoplasma has been shown to cause cancer! After I figured out that he was just goofin' on me, I kind of got a laugh out of it, but now I'm not so sure it's all that funny. Richard8081 (talk) 20:40, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

"History of Mycoplasma Research" almost word for word from published work
Not sure what Wikipedia's policies on plagarism are, but the "History of Mycoplasma Research" section of this article is barely reworded from Razin & Hayflick, "Highlights of mycoplasma research -- An historical perspective" Biologicals 2010. Should probably have someone with domain expertise rewrite that. Tcybulski (talk) 18:54, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Just checked into this right now....this user is correct. I have blanked but not removed content, I am working on seeing if it is a copyvio at this moment and will immediately delete the copyvio if it is.
 *  Bfpage &#124;leave a message 23:47, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I believe that description of the "three nontaxonomic groups" under Phylogeny is unduely targeted. They have nothing to do with that history article as far as I can tell. Still, the text is a little too detached from the Gupta nomenclature for me to quickly integrate into the article. Artoria2e5 🌉 15:23, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Links to cancer pretty certain
In my most recent searches of the medical literature on the 'links' between cancers and mycoplasma infections there seems to be a pretty strong consensus that the little germs indeed are strongly implicated in a number of cancers. The language in the article does not match the language that I am reading in reliable, review-level medical journal articles. So, yes. You can catch cancer.
 *  Bfpage &#124;leave a message 21:50, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Colonize vs. infect
In the most recent med journal review articles regarding mycoplasmas, the only time that the word "colonize" is used is when an infant is being born or delivered and comes in contact with a mycoplasma species. At that point, the infant is colonized. After colonization, symptoms of infection may or may not occur. Colonization of mycoplasma results in being infected, though the person may not have symptoms. Mycoplasmas are not commensals in or on humans. They are either spread by vertical transmission or by sex (of all varieties). When a person is tested positive for a mycoplasma infection, they are treated for it due to the risks involved in not treating it. Since mycoplasma infections are associated with spontaneous abortion, still-births, urethritis, bacterial vaginosis, infertility, pelvic inflammatory disease, tubal factor infertility, neonatal sepsis and death it doesn't make sense to say that someone is colonized but needs to be treated with an antibiotic to remove their colonization.

There is lots of editing to do on this article, believe me. There is much content that is only visible through the edit window that is questionably a copyvio if someone wants to go through it and reword it. Best Regards,
 *  Bfpage &#124;leave a message 22:45, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The mycoplasma listed in this section came from Table 1 of the cited review article (Waites et al., 2005). Note that one of the column headers in the table is labeled "Primary site of colonization," not "Primary site of infection."  The reason for this is that a majority of the mycoplasma listed do not have a role in disease. The first paragraph in p. 758 even states that several of the species listed are considered "commensals."  CatPath (talk) 00:39, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I actually totally agree with you! But the species listed under the section about infecting humans really are pathogens and are considered infections to be cured when found.  It is great to have another editor involved in improving this article.  Your input is very valuable to me.  Have you seen how many page views this article gets?  I did not get my list of species from that 2005 article but from a variety of other sources more recent.  That doesn't make the 2005 reference a 'bad' reference, it might not be as up-to-date.  I am trying to create an article for each of the species.  Are you interested?  I've developed 'boilerplate' which amounts to a 'skeleton' of an article on a mycoplasma species with much of the 'wikification' already written.  You can see it here: User:Bfpage/mycoplasma boilerplate
 *  Bfpage &#124;leave a message 12:43, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
 * If the species are really considered pathogens, can you add the references when you have the time? Thanks for the invitation, but I don't have the time to commit.  I tend to edit articles haphazardly, making just a few edits in one and then moving on to the next one that attracts my interest.  CatPath (talk) 00:58, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I added the references about the pathogenicity in each of the articles on each of the species. I'm not sure where those references would best appear in this article on the genus.  No matter how you edit, haphazardly or no, I appreciate your edits on this article.  No time commitment is necessary, of course.  It's just nice to have you add your edits.  Best Regards,
 *  Bfpage &#124;leave a message 01:17, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

mycoplasm.
can mycaplasma pneum. effece the brain. headaches? janet h. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.74.220.101 (talk) 04:59, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

mycoplasma
How many spices in mycoplasma Scienty sundar (talk) 05:19, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

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Wording change in Characteristics section
Hello all- I just did some copyediting to the Characteristics section. Among other edits for punctuation and readability, I changed "were discovered" to "have been found". If the meaning of "were discovered" was really "were first discovered", would someone please let me know, or make the change (including "first" for clarity)? Thanks in advance. Eric talk 19:52, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

"For example, M. genitalium is flask-shaped"
... Come on. We know what it's shaped like. It's right there in the name. That's not a flask. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:449:4581:6920:0:0:0:89C6 (talk) 08:06, 31 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Just because it lives in people's urethras and genitals doesn't mean it looks like one. Artoria2e5 🌉 03:57, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Gupta, possible move
With Gupta 2018 scattering Mycoplasma all over Mollicutes, this page is going to need a move sooner or later. Most of the content apply to all Mollicutes and so that would be the main target of our move; we will need to leave a on the new mycoides-centric Mycoplasma so people know where to look. We will at least need to create some of newer the families & genera pages too. That's gonna be a lot of work and I'm not sure I want to do it, but it is the right and neat thing to do.

Well, unless Gupta's changes somehow magically get reverted. With JO 122 I don't see it coming. Artoria2e5 🌉 04:03, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

For what is worth, not all of Gupta 2018 (let alone 2019) is validated, so even by sticking to LPSN there will be a lot of residual messiness in the 50 correct names of what's left of Mycoplasma. An example is "Mycoplasmopsis elephantis" (Kirchhoff et al. 1996) Gupta et al. 2018, which was not on Validation List 184. I've got no idea why some ''comb. nov.'' from the same table of the paper are considered "effective publication" by the LPSN, but others are not -- they look the same! --Artoria2e5 🌉 05:57, 17 November 2023 (UTC)