Giuseppe
Emeritus
[Source: Eurosurveillance, full text: (LINK). Extract, edited.]
E Jacobs (
)<SUP>1</SUP>
Citation style for this article: Jacobs E. Mycoplasma pneumoniae: now in the focus of clinicians and epidemiologists. Euro Surveill. 2012;17(6)
ii=20084. Available online: http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=20084
Date of submission: <HR>
Several northern European countries have experienced outbreaks of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in 2010 and 2011, as described in recent reports and in this issue. Such outbreaks appear with regular periodicity and have occupied clinicians and epidemiologists for many years. 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 metabolism 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. pneumoniae: 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. pneumoniae 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.
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Eurosurveillance, Volume 17, Issue 6, 09 February 2012
Editorials
Mycoplasma pneumoniae: now in the focus of clinicians and epidemiologists
Editorials
Mycoplasma pneumoniae: now in the focus of clinicians and epidemiologists
E Jacobs (
- Dresden University of Technology, Medical Faculty Carl Gustav Carus, Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene, Dresden, Germany
Citation style for this article: Jacobs E. Mycoplasma pneumoniae: now in the focus of clinicians and epidemiologists. Euro Surveill. 2012;17(6)
ii=20084. Available online: http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=20084 Date of submission: <HR>
Several northern European countries have experienced outbreaks of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in 2010 and 2011, as described in recent reports and in this issue. Such outbreaks appear with regular periodicity and have occupied clinicians and epidemiologists for many years. 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 metabolism 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. pneumoniae: 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. pneumoniae 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.
(?)