Abstract
BackgroundWe have previously reported that altered culture conditions (a broth media with shaking) could induce a strain of Helicobacter pylori to assume a long spiral morphology resembling that described for Helicobacter heilmannii. The present study was initiated to determine if other strains of H. pylori could be induced to assume that morphology and if doing so would alter the expression of immunodominant proteins.ResultsThe six strains used in this study were American Type Culture Collection 43504, 43579, 49503, 51652, and 51653, and Sydney Strain I. Each strain was grown on solid media and in broth culture using conditions previously shown to induce the long spiral morphology in strain 43504. DNA from each was subjected to urease gene fingerprint analysis. Results of the molecular analysis showed identical fingerprint patterns for each strain independent of culture source, indicating that only a single strain was present in each culture. Expression of immunodominant proteins was assessed by SDS polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and Western blotting with hyperimmune rabbit anti H. pylori sera or serum from an H. pylori infected patient. Analysis of protein profiles revealed some variation between strains but no significant differences associated with morphologic alterations.ConclusionsThese results indicate that growth of H. pylori in a long spiral form does not affect expression of immunodominant proteins, thus in vivo growth in the long spiral form (not documented to date) would not be distinguishable by serology.
Highlights
We have previously reported that altered culture conditions could induce a strain of Helicobacter pylori to assume a long spiral morphology resembling that described for Helicobacter heilmannii
We have previously reported that growth in a broth media with shaking can induce H. pylori to assume a long spiral morphology more closely resembling that described for H. heilmannii than for typical H. pylori
We previously reported that growth of a single H. pylori strain in a liquid media with shaking yielded bacteria that more closely resembled the morphology reported for H. heilmannii than that known to be typical for H. pylori[8,10,11,16]
Summary
We have previously reported that altered culture conditions (a broth media with shaking) could induce a strain of Helicobacter pylori to assume a long spiral morphology resembling that described for Helicobacter heilmannii. The present study was initiated to determine if other strains of H. pylori could be induced to assume that morphology and if doing so would alter the expression of immunodominant proteins. Curved and spiral-shaped bacteria have been described in the gastric mucosa of humans for over a century, but it was not until the early 1980s that Helicobacter pylori was successfully cultured and determined to cause chronic gastritis and peptic ulcer disease [1,2,3]. It is well established that this organism is a human pathogen, and evidence gathered to date suggests that chronic H. pylori infection can predispose an individual to gastric cancer [4]. Current estimates place the frequency of infection with H. heilmannii between 0.2 and 1.7% [6,12,13]
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