Origin and Development To Parasitic Life
Analysis of the genomes of mycoplasmas gives solid support for the hypothesis that mycoplasmas have developed from Gram-positive bacteria by a process of reductive evolution. By adopting a parasitic mode of life with use of nutrients from their hosts, mycoplasmas were able to reduce their genetic material considerably. On the other hand, mycoplasma lost the genes for many assimilative processes. Thus Mycoplasma possibly became the smallest self-replicating organism in nature. Mycoplasma genitalium, with 580,000 base pairs, has an especially small genome size. Some phytoplasmas also have a very small genome size. The genera with the smallest genome are considered to be phylogenetically the most "recent" mollicutes.
To maintain their parasitic mode of life the mollicutes have developed rather sophisticated mechanisms to colonize their hosts and resist the host immune system.
Read more about this topic: Mollicutes
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