News reports on May 20, 2010, heralded a new era in scientific research, as well as a new way of thinking about the nature of life. Craig Venter and his team had created a cell controlled by an entirely synthetic genome. So, were the sensational headlines warranted? And just how much of an advance is the latest report from the Venter Institute? Craig Venter (Chairman and President of the J. Cra...

200 serum samples were collected from apparently healthy goats of different age and sex from Anand, Navsari and Valsad districts of Gujarat (India), were screened for mycoplasmal antibodies by slide agglutination test using colored antigen of Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. capri. Out of 200 serum samples screened 85 were found to be positive indicating overall seroprevalence of 42.50 percent. The h...

Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. mycoides Large Colony (LC) type is a pathogen of goats causing contagious agalactia and respiratory disease, found on all continents where small ruminants are kept. It shares close genetic characteristics with M. mycoides subsp. capri. Substrate oxidation by 22 strains of M. mycoides subsp. mycoides LC from nine countries was compared with that of eight strains of M. ...

Contour clamped homogeneous field (CHEF) agarose gel electrophoresis (AGE), ramped to give linear separation of DNA molecules of 600-1600 kilobase pairs (kbp), was used to determine mobilities for full-sized genomic DNA of the serotype standard strains of the human genital mollicutes, Ureaplasma urealyticum relative to yeast chromosomal DNA markers. Indicated genome sizes (in kbp) were 760 for ...

The phylogenetic position of the Mollicutes has been re-examined by using phosphoglycerate kinase (Pgk) amino acid sequences. Hitherto unpublished sequences from Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. mycoides, Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae and Spiroplasma citri were included in the analysis. Phylogenetic trees based on Pgk data indicated a monophyletic origin for the Mollicutes within the Firmicutes, whereas B...

ba ck gr ou nd CBPP is a severe respiratory disease of cattle and buffalo caused by Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. mycoides biotype Small Colony (MmmSC). The agent of CBPP was recently isolated from goats at different times and places, even in areas free of CBPP. Thereby, goats should be considered a putative MmmSC reservoir. No test has been proposed so far for surveillance of CBPP in goats. Furth...

A cross sectional study was done to understand the effect of genotypes, farm management and agro-climatic conditions in Kerala and Uttar Pradesh on seroprevalence of Mycoplasma mycoides Subsp. capri (Mmc) in goats. Goat serum was screened by Slide Agglutination test (SAT) for Mmc antibodies. It was found that there was no statistically significant difference (P>0.05) in mycoplasma seroprevalenc...

In vitro minimum inhibitory concentrations were determined for 21 antimicrobials against 41 isolates of Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. mycoides small-colony type, the cause of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia. Of the antimicrobials used most widely in Africa, oxytetracycline and tilmicosin were effective, while the isolates were resistant to tylosin. These results provide a baseline for monitoring...

A suicide plasmid, pExp1-ctpA::tetM-recAec, employing recA from Escherichia coli and tetM as a selection marker, was used to generate ctpA knockout mutants in Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. capri through targeted gene disruption. Inclusion of E. coli recA greatly enhanced both the consistency and the recovery of mutants generated by homologous recombination.