Mycoplasma information?

["Tim Gwinn" <***>]

Hi all,

 

A relative was recently diagnosed with "walking pneumonia", and wondering what that actually was, I did a little research. In the process I came to learn some about mycoplasmas (or Mollicutes), a kind of prokaryote bacterium (or bacterium-like) which apparently are the smallest known living organisms. Because of this latter fact, they intrigue me as perhaps being informative about "minimum requirements" for an organism being alive.

 

I wondered if anyone on the list was very familiar with them, or knew of a good web resource regarding their inner workings? Most web info I found is related to the infections they cause, rather than their internal structure or workings.

 

Tim