Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.
Adhesion proteins of Mycoplasma pneumoniae
Mycoplasmas are unique cell wall deficient, cholesterol requiring, highly pleomorphic bacteria that possess very small genome. M. pneumoniae is an important human pathogen that possesses specialized tip organelle to mediate cytadherence. It is a complex multifactorial process requiring a group of mycoplasma proteins such as P1, P30, P116 and HMW1-3. Expression of major mycoplasma adhesin proteins in heterologous expression systems provides an opportunity to study the role(s) of these proteins in pathogenicity and helps to develop diagnostic reagents. In this review we highlight the role(s) of various cytadhesin proteins of M. pneumoniae.