Mycoplasma pneumoniae: now in the focus of clinicians and epidemiologists

摘要

Some 50 years ago, Chanock et al. [1] described an artificial medium that enabled the identification of the aetiological agent of an atypical pneumonia first reported 20 years earlier, which was first described as pleuropneumonia-like organisms (PPLO) and renamed as Mycoplasma pneumoniae [2]. More recently, genome analysis has revealed the bacterium’s limited metabo- lism and biosynthesis of carbohydrates, proteins, nucleic acid and lipids, showing that the agent is well adapted to its only host, humans. We are, however, still unable to mimic the natural environment of M. pneu- moniae: faster growth in culture media is needed for diagnostic purposes. It takes more than 10 days — in fact often up to three weeks — to grow M. pneumo- niae from respiratory specimens taken from patients with an interstitial pneumonia. The organism can be cultured from samples taken in the acute phase of the infection, but because of the length of time needed, culture techniques have not been established in most bacteriological laboratories.