Mollicutes, the Classification of Mycoplasma

by Emil Wirostko, M.D.

The late Dr. Wirostko was a practicing ophthalmologist specializing in infectious eye disease and was affiliated with Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New Jersey. His research spanned 20 years and dealt extensively with MLOs as seen in ophthalmic disease such as uveitis in JRA patients.

Mollicutes or MLOs are hopnoids, the most common element in nature. MLOs are the mycoplasmas of the plant. According to the National Geographic, July 1988, an MLO lives within the cell, is not culturable, is intracellular and transmissible. It responds to antibiotic treatment.

In the human, the cell wall is the determinant of disease. Mycoplasmas or MLOs are pathogenic because they are found in the internal structural frame-work of a cell, the cytoskeleton. MLO infection in humans is a vascular disease. They are within leukocytes and are found in the bone marrow where thay parasitize the marow. They are lymphocytic infiltrates, which cause leukocyte dysfunction or what we call autoimmunity. In RA, the bone marrow is chronically infected. In this way, MLOs cause tissue lysis, occasional granuloma and neovasculation or microvasculitis. They can also destroy platelets, the lucleus and leukocytes.

MLOs have three effects on the cell.

1) They destroy the cell.

2) They cause cell dysfunction.

3) They damage the cell nucleus.

Damage of the nucleus is particularly problematic because when it divides and multiplies, the divisions have the damage replicated in them. This damage plus multiplication equals cancer.

Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis Inflammatory Eye Disease Parasitization of Ocular Leukocytes by Mollicute0like Organisms, E Wirostko, L Johnson, W Wirostko,J Rhu, 16:11, 1989, 1446-53.

Mycoplasma-like Organisms and Ophthalmic Disease, E Wirostko, LA Johnson, BM Wirostko, RL Farris, Trans Am Ophth Soc, 91:85, 1993, 85-98.

onerplasmaspiroplasmaureaplasmaMLOmycoplasmalow G & C

clostridia

acholeplasmaother gram + bacteria