Upon inhalation, M.hyopneumoniae must overcome the mucociliary escalator and transverse layers of heavily glycosylated mucins.These are produced as decoys for bacterial adhesins that exploit surface glycoconjugates and extracellular matrix components during colonization. M. hyopneumoniae adheres to the ciliated respiratory epithelia where it
initially causes ciliostasis, destruction of cilia and possibly epithelial cell death