Improving Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae culture medium by a comparative transcriptome method

Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae (Mo) is difficult to culture, resulting in many difficulties in related research and application. Since nucleotide metabolism is a basic metabolism affects growth, this study conducted a “point-to-point” comparison of the corresponding growth phases between the Mo NM151 strain and the Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. capri (Mmc) PG3 strain. The results showed that the largest difference in nucleotide metabolism was found in the stationary phase. Nucleotide synthesis in PG3 was mostly de novo, while nucleotide synthesis in NM151 was primarily based on salvage synthesis. Compared with PG3, the missing reactions of NM151 referred to the synthesis of deoxythymine monophosphate. We proposed and validated a culture medium with added serine to fill this gap and prolong the stationary phase of NM151. This solved the problem of the fast death of Mo, which is significant for related research and application.