Spiroplasma are part of a class of bacteria called Mollicutes. These little guys are very, well, little - between 0.2 and 0.3 microns wide (too small to see with a light microscope). They also have ...

A microscope image of the helix-shaped bacteria Spiroplasma, proteins from which have been used to create the smallest synthetic bacteria that can move on its own. Public Domain. 2 / 2.

How Spiroplasma weakens isn't known, but it clearly does. And in their new findings, Jaenike's team shows that Spiroplasma is racing through fruit flies across North America.

An endosymbiotic bacterium, Spiroplasma, specifically kills the males of its fruit-fly host (Drosophila). This has perplexed biologists since the 1950's, but scientists have now solved the mystery ...

The reproductive systems of arthropods are often manipulated by endosymbiotic microorganisms, for example by bacteria belonging to the genera Wolbachia, Rickettsia, Spiroplasma or Cardinium, or by ...

In Spiroplasma, scientists had already identified seven genes likely to aid this kind of cell movement. But confirming these genes' precise roles experimentally has proved challenging.

Leafhoppers are insects that carry the harmful spiroplasma disease and whose population tends to spread in hot and dry conditions. They have badly dented 2023/24 corn, which started its harvest a ...