By replacing this DNA, they change the bacteria into another species, called Mycoplasma mycoides.

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They have examined the smallest-known bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium which has just 480 genes.

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Mycoplasma pneumoniae, a cause of pneumonia, as its name suggests, is also implicated in reactive arthritis.

ECONOMIST: Bugged by disease

M. genitalium still had a slow-growth problem, so the team swapped bugs, lighting on its cousin, Mycoplasma mycoides.

ECONOMIST: Artificial lifeforms

Those involved in the study were also tested for Chlamydia pneumoniae, which causes lung diseases, and Mycoplasma pneumoniae, which can cause a mild form of pneumonia.

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Everyone, meet Mycoplasma genitalium, the subject of many scientific papers, even more vists to the clinic and now the first organism to be entirely recreated in binary.

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It may be provoked by infection with Chlamydia trachomatis, a sexually transmitted denizen of the genital tract, and Ureaplasma urealyticum and Mycoplasma fermentans, two other inhabitants of the genitals.

ECONOMIST: Bugged by disease | The

Genomics researcher Craig Venter just announced that he and a team at his eponymous institute have created a genetic code synthetically and inserted it into a bacterium called Mycoplasma capricolum.

FORBES: Life Made In The Lab! (But Don't Freak Out)

Mycoplasma pneumoniae also appears to be involved in asthma.

ECONOMIST: Bugged by disease

As a check, the researchers sequenced the DNA from some of the flourishing spots (a Mycoplasma genome is the sort of thing a modern sequencing set-up can knock off before its morning coffee).

ECONOMIST: Artificial lifeforms