MYCOPLASMAS

Acute M. pneumoniae infections cause pneumonia, bronchitis; chronic infection in the lungs can exacerbate other respiratory diseases such as asthma. Mycoplasmas can disseminate from their primary infection site to other organs. Central nervous system can be a target, resulting in encephalitis; attack on the joints and development of arthritis is also frequent.
Mycoplasma infections are particularly frequent in CFS patients. Using PCR detection, M. fermentans was found in 34% of CFS patients, versus 8% of healthy controls. Another study showed that more than two third of CFS patients (versus 5.6% of controls) were infected by at least one mycoplasma species (M. fermentans, M. pneumoniae, or M. hominis). This high prevalence may result from the immunodepression typically observed in CFS (low NK activity); however persistent mycoplasma infections can in turn contribute to the etiology of the disease by eliciting a chronic inflammatory response.

Nicolson et al. (J Neurosci Res. 2007) examined the blood of 48 patients from central and southern California diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) and found that a large subset (28/48 or 58.3%) of patients showed evidence of Mycoplasma spp. infections compared with two of 45 (4.7%) age-matched control subjects (odds ratio = 13.8, P < 0.001).