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. 1969 Jun;98(3):1036–1040. doi: 10.1128/jb.98.3.1036-1040.1969

Relationship of Hydrogen Peroxide Production by Mycoplasma pulmonis to Virulence for Catalase-deficient Mice

Patricia C Brennan 1, Robert N Feinstein 1
PMCID: PMC315292  PMID: 5788695

Abstract

Mycoplasma pulmonis, an etiological agent of murine pneumonia, produced about 0.065 μmoles of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) per hr per 1010 colony-forming units. When glucose was present at a concentration of 0.01 m, H2O2 production was increased by 50%. To determine if H2O2 production by M. pulmonis could be correlated with virulence, normal, acatalasemic, and acatalatic mice were infected with the organism. Three days after infection with M. pulmonis significantly more acatalatic mice had pneumonia than did normal or acatalasemic mice. The pneumonia in acatalatic mice was also more severe than in the other two groups. Five days after infection, pneumonia in the acatalatic mice was resolved, whereas normal mice were severely affected. The presence of pneumonia and the severity were correlated with the recovery of M. pulmonis from the lesions. In vitro studies of the effect of catalase on M. pulmonis showed that exogenously supplied catalase stimulated the growth of M. pulmonis at 37 C and prolonged its survival at 25 C. Hemolysis of sheep blood, guinea pig blood, rabbit blood, and normal and acatalasemic mouse blood by M. pulmonis was inversely related to the catalase activity of the erythrocytes. These findings suggest that H2O2 secretion contributes to the virulence of M. pulmonis and to the death of the microorganism in the absence of host catalase.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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