Species name： Mycoplasma
Harvard UniversityDepartment of Molecular and Cellular BiologyHarvard Biological Labs Howard C. Berg
Mycoplasma are small wall-less bacteria. Some species and others are nonmotile. M. mobile, shown here, glides at about 3 µm/s. It was isolated from the gill of a freshwater fish. The cell has a nose, like a shmoo, and it glides nose first. In a remarkable experiment, Uenoyama and Miyata (2005) have shown that detergent-lysed cells continue to glide if provided Mg++ and ATP.
(2014.03.20)