HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by ROSE, D. L. Articles by WILLIAMSON, D. L. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by ROSE, D. L. Articles by WILLIAMSON, D. L. Agricola Articles by ROSE, D. L. Articles by WILLIAMSON, D. L.

Mycoplasma lactucae sp. nov., a Sterol-Requiring Mollicute from a Plant Surface

¹Mycoplasma Section, Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Frederick Cancer Research Facility, Frederick, Maryland 21701
²Department of Medical Microbiology, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210
³Insect Pathology Laboratory, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Maryland 20705
⁴Laboratoire de Biologie Cellulaire et Moléculaire, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique. Pont-de-la-Maye, France
⁵Department of Anatomical Sciences, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York 11794

^* Corresponding author.

ABSTRACT

Strain 831-C4^T (T = type strain), isolated from the surface of lettuce plants (Lactuca sativa) obtained from a retail food market, was shown to be a sterol-requiring mollicute. Morphological examination of this organism by electron and dark-field microscopic techniques showed that it consists of small, nonhelical, nonmotile, pleomorphic coccoid cells, with individual cells surrounded by a single cytoplasmic membrane. No evidence of a cell wall was observed. The organism grew rapidly in all conventional culture medium formulations for mollicutes in either aerobic or anaerobic environments. The optimum temperature for growth was 30°C, but multiplication occurred at 18 to 37°C. Strain 831-C4^T catabolized glucose, but hydrolysis of arginine or urea could not be demonstrated. The genome size of strain 831-C4^T was determined to be about 569 megadaltons, while the base composition (guanine-plus-cytosine content) of the DNA was 30.0 mol%. Recent studies in which we compared the 16S rRNA sequences of strain 831-C4^T with those of more than 40 other mollicutes indicated that this organism is phylogenetically related to the Spiroplasma-Mycoplasma mycoides clade. Strain 831-C4^T was serologically unrelated to the type strains of previously described Mycoplasma species and to 18 other unclassified sterol-requiring isolates cultivated from various animal, plant, or insect sources. Strain 831-C4^T (= ATCC 49193) is the type strain of Mycoplasma lactucae sp. nov.