What is mycoplasma and is it serious?

Mycoplasma is not often mentioned in daily life, but people have learned from many studies that it can cause great harm to people's bodies, and may even cause symptoms of urethritis, male infertility, interfere with sperm motility, and cause a decline in male sexual function. Therefore, people need to have a certain understanding of this. If they find that they have this disease, they need to seek medical attention in time. As long as the treatment is proper, they can recover their health soon.

1. Hazards of infection

1. Symptoms of urethritis

When mycoplasma infects the urethra, patients may experience symptoms of urethritis and may develop secondary mycoplasma-chlamydia chronic prostatitis. Women may also experience involvement of the cervix and Bartholin's glands, causing urethritis, cervicitis and Bartholin's glanditis.

2. Cause male infertility

Due to mycoplasma infection, timely treatment cannot be obtained, and the microorganism continues to infect the seminal tract, seminal vesicles and testicles, affecting the quality of sperm and semen and causing infertility. Ureaplasma urealyticum infection causes pathological changes in male sperm, leading to male infertility.

3. Interfere with sperm movement

When infected with mycoplasma, the disease is delayed, which affects the speed and frequency of sperm movement to a certain extent.

4. Decreased male sexual function

Due to the damage of pathogenic microorganisms to the reproductive organs and sexual nerve reaction endings, the sexual nerves become insensitive to effective stimulation, the sexual organs are in a refractory period for a long time, sexual desire and response are weakened, which can lead to impotence over time.

2. Main features

Morphology and structure

The size of mycoplasma is 0.2 to 0.3 um, which can pass through the filter and often cause contamination troubles in cell culture work. The colonies are small (0.1~1.0mm in diameter) and appear in a unique "fried egg" shape on the surface of the solid culture medium. It has no cell wall, cannot maintain a fixed shape and is polymorphic. It is sensitive to osmotic pressure and insensitive to antibiotics that inhibit cell wall synthesis. Gram staining is not easy to stain, so Giemsa staining is often used to dye it light purple. The cell membrane contains a large amount of cholesterol, accounting for about 36%, which plays a certain role in maintaining the integrity of the cell membrane. The cell membrane contains sterols and is tougher than the membranes of other prokaryotes. Any substance that can act on cholesterol (such as amphotericin B, saponin, etc.) can cause damage to the mycoplasma membrane and cause the death of the mycoplasma.

The mycoplasma genome is a circular double-stranded DNA with a small molecular weight (only one-fifth of that of Escherichia coli) and very limited synthesis and metabolism.

One end of Mycoplasma pneumoniae has a special terminal structure that enables the mycoplasma to adhere to the surface of respiratory mucosal epithelial cells and is related to pathogenicity.