Detection of Genital Mycoplasmas by PCR

Mycoplasmas are the smallest prokaryotes capable of self-replication. They belong to the class Mollicutes (meaning soft-skin) and have evolved regressively, by genome reduction, from Gram-positive bacterial ancestors, namely certain clostridia (1 ). The taxonomy of the class Mollicutes containing four orders, five families, and eight genera, is shown in Table 1 (2 ). The term ‘mollicute’ is sometimes used trivially to describe any organism in the class. The term ‘mycoplasma’ might be used best to describe any member of the genus Mycoplasma , but is also used, as in this chapter, in a trivial way to refer to any organism in the class.