IAI Accepts, published online ahead of print on 8 September 2008

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Infect. Immun. doi:10.1128/IAI.00667-08
Copyright (c) 2008, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

Association of Mycoplasma arthritidis mitogen (MAM) with lethal toxicity but not arthritis in mice

Wenyi Luo, Huilan Yu, Zuhua Cao, Trenton R. Schoeb, Michele Marron, and Kevin Dybvig^*

Departments of Genetics, and Pediatrics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294

Mycoplasma arthritidis induces an acute to chronic arthritis in rodents. Arthritis induced in mice histologically resembles human rheumatoid arthritis and can be associated with lethal toxicity following systemic injection. The M. arthritidis superantigen (MAM) has long been implicated as having a role in pathogenesis, but its significance with respect to toxicity and arthritogenicity in mycoplasma-induced disease is unclear. To study the pathogenic significance of MAM, M. arthritidis mutants that overproduced or failed to produce MAM were developed. MAM overproduction and knockout mutants were more or less mitogenic, respectively, than the wild-type strain. The degree of mitogenic activity correlated with lethal toxicity in DBA/2J mice. In contrast, histopathological studies detected no correlation between MAM production and the severity of arthritis induced in DBA/2J and CBA/J mice.