Mollicutes(Mycoplasmas)

Mollicutes(Mycoplasmas)

Mollicutes - Mycoplasmas -The common name for this group has traditionally been the Mycoplasmas. However, this usage invites confusion since this word also refers to the genus, Mycoplasma. It is thus preferred to use the more recently coined term Mollicutes for this group of microorganisms. The distinguishing feature of the mollicutes group of eubacteria is their lack of a defined cell wall. Hence, they are called mollicutes (meaning "soft skin"). In 1898 the French scientists, E. Nocard and E.R. Roux, studying pleural fluids of cattle suffering from bovine pleuropneumonia, discovered the organisms that were entirely different from any other microorganisms then known.

When cultivated on rich organic media containing about 20% of animal serum, the organisms were found in different from as spheroid, thin, branching filaments, stellate or asteroid structures and other irregular forms. Similar pleomorphic (Grpleo=many; morphe= forms) organisms were later isolated from other animals as sheep, goats, dogs, rats mice, human beings. Similar forms were also found growing as saprophytes in decaying organic matter. These were named as pleuropneumonia like organisms (PPLO).

The species discovered by Nocard and Roux was given the first binomial as Asterococcus mycoides by Borrel at ( 1910), meaning rounded and stellate forms with radial, mold like filaments. It was later on put under the genus Mycoplasma by Nowak (1929) and these organisms are now commonly called as mollicutes or mycoplasmas.

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