Genome of Mycoplasma arthritidis

The genomes of several species of mycoplasma have been sequenced. Most of these species rely on the glycolytic pathway for energy production, with the one exception of Ureaplasma, a species that breaks down urea as its principle source of acquiring energy. Several species, including as Mycoplasma arthritidis, are nonglycolytic and can use arginine as their source of energy. Described here are the genome sequence and a transposon library of M. arthritidis. The genome of 820,453 bp is typical in size for a mycoplasma and contains two large families of genes that are predicted to code for phase-variable proteins. The transposon library was constructed using a minitransposon that inserts stably into the mycoplasma genome. Of the 635 predicted coding regions, 218 were disrupted in a library of 1,100 members. Dispensable genes included the gene coding for the MAM superantigen and genes coding for ribosomal proteins S15, S18, and L15.