Document Type : Original Research Article

Abstract

Mycoplasma species are cell wall deficient intracellular microorganisms that are related to respiratory and urogenital infections in human being. In this study, we are providing insights into the Mycoplasma evolutionary origin based on the taxonomical characterization of such microorganism and also searching for homology sequences of the bacterial cell wall biosynthetic proteins in Mycoplasma species using bioinformatics approach. Our results indicated that the ancestor of Mycoplasma is eubacteria. In addition, the presence of homologous proteins to the teichoic acids biosynthetic proteins in Mycoplasma strongly suggests that Mycoplasma was originally a Gram-positive bacterium and had lost the cell wall as a part of the adaptation mechanism to be intracellular parasite.

Keywords

• Mycoplasma
• evolution
• eubacteria
• cell wall biosynthesis
• sequence homology