Abstract
Mycoplasma infections are frequent in humans, as well as in a broad range of animals. However, antimicrobial treatment options are limited, partly due to the lack of a cell wall in these peculiar bacteria. Both veterinary and human medicines are facing increasing resistance prevalence for the most commonly used drugs, despite different usage practices. To date, very few reviews have integrated knowledge on resistance to antimicrobials in humans and animals, the latest dating back to 2014. To fill this gap, we examined, in parallel, antimicrobial usage, resistance mechanisms and either phenotype or genotype-based methods for antimicrobial susceptibility testing, as well as epidemiology of resistance of the most clinically relevant human and animal mycoplasma species. This review unveiled common features and differences that need to be taken into consideration in a “One Health” perspective. Lastly, two examples of critical cases of multiple drug resistance are highlighted, namely, the human M. genitalium and the animal M. bovis species, both of which can lead to the threat of untreatable infections.
Highlights
Mycoplasma is a generic term used to refer to any of the members of the class Mollicutes, which includes both the Mycoplasma and Ureaplasma genera [1]
Antibiotics that result in high host-cell intracellular concentrations, such as macrolides, clindamycin and fluoroquinolones, are of particular interest, because several human mycoplasma species, such as M. pneumoniae or M. genitalium, can localize and survive within the cell [40]
Within the CoVetLab consortium, we conducted a monocentric study with isolates from Nordic European countries that reached the same conclusion, that is, recent isolates shared the common feature of lowered susceptibility to major antimicrobial families, such as macrolides, tetracyclines and phenicols, but a preserved susceptibility to fluoroquinolones and aminoglycosides [172]
Summary
Mycoplasma is a generic term used to refer to any of the members of the class Mollicutes, which includes both the Mycoplasma and Ureaplasma genera [1]. Extra-genital infections are usually, but not always, associated with immunodeficiency of the humoral immune response, such as a- or hypogammaglobulinemia, or immunosuppression following solid organ transplantation [13]. Reproductive disorders associated with Ureaplasma spp. are infrequently reported in cattle. Mycoplasma-related infectious diseases in animals are multifactorial, often associated with other viral or bacterial infections [16]. In both humans and animals, several opportunistic or commensal mycoplasma species are frequently present in the same body niche (oropharynx, respiratory and genital tract) as recognized pathogens [4], in healthy and diseased individuals
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