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Mycoplasma (Pleuropneumonia-Like Organisms) and Blood Group I; Associations with Neoplastic Disease

Mycoplasma pneumoniae stimulates transformation and mitosis in cultures of lymphocytes obtained from sensitized individuals1, as do other antigens2. In contrast, M. hominis3 and M. arthritidis4 inhibit lymphocyte transformation induced by phytohaemagglutinin (PHA). We have examined the effects of different species of Mycoplasma on lymphocyte cultures in an attempt to elucidate the mechanism of mycoplasma inhibition of PHA-induced transformation.

AT certain times, unexpectedly high yields of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) have been obtained from infected primary hamster embryo fibroblast (HEF) cell cultures,, which were later found to have been contaminated with mycoplasma. The work reported here indicates that this contamination can enhance VSV replication.

IT has been established that continuous tissue cell cultures are commonly contaminated with pleuropneumonia-like organisms and/or L-forms of bacteria1–5. These results have encouraged investigators to search for reasonably simple methods for the detection of these agents, especially in relation to studies for their elimination. Of methods proposed for their detection, cultivation and isolation have proved most successful6. With the advent of the fluorescent antibody technique as a rapid method for the identification of micro-organisms, it seemed to us that this procedure might be useful as a means of detecting contamination of pleuropneumonia-like organisms in tissue cell cultures. The feasibility of this technique is presented here.

FOUR laboratories have collaborated to isolate and identify mycoplasmas from the pharyngeal and lower urogenital tissues of the African green monkey. Seventy mycoplasmas were isolated from fifty-two of 142 specimens obtained from seventy-one monkeys. Most of the simian mycoplasmas isolated were similar or identical to Mycoplasma species previously isolated only from man.