The isolation of a new mycoplasma from pooled lower-alimentary-tract tissues of a cow and the isolation of serologically and otherwise similar organisms from the lower alimentary tract, feces, or urogenital tract of other cows are described. The first isolate, designated Ilsley, was used as a reference strain, and two clones were examined in characterization tests. The Ilsley strain has the essential cultural, morphological, and biological properties of mycoplasmas (including a typically low deoxyribonucleic acid base ratio of 26.4 mol% guanine plus cytosine) but exhibited some unusual features of minor taxonomic importance. These included the ability to metabolize both glucose and arginine, resistance to polyanethol sulfonate but not digitonin, and an unusual morphology, as indicated by electron microscopy, with flask- or club-shaped cells and some distinctive terminal structures. The Ilsley strain was shown to be serologically distinct from 57 Mycoplasma nomenspecies (14 from bovine and 43 from human and other animal sources), including species with similar biochemical and cultural characteristics. On the basis of the above findings, it is proposed that this new strain and the other, similar ones belong to a new species, Mycoplasma alvi. Strain Ilsley (= NCTC 10157) is the type strain.
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