Abstract
To be able to survive, Helicobacter pylori must adhere to the gastric epithelial cells of its human host. For this purpose, the bacterium employs an array of adhesins, for example, AlpA. The adhesin AlpA has been proposed as a major adhesin because of its critical role in human stomach colonization. Therefore, understanding how AlpA evolved could be important for the development of new diagnostic strategies. However, the genetic variation and microevolutionary patterns of alpA have not been described in Colombia. The study aim was to describe the variation patterns and microevolutionary process of alpA in Colombian clinical isolates of H. pylori. The existing polymorphisms, which are deviations from the neutral model of molecular evolution, and the genetic differentiation of the alpA gene from Colombian clinical isolates of H. pylori were determined. The analysis shows that gene conversion and purifying selection have shaped the evolution of three different variants of alpA in Colombia.
Highlights
Helicobacter pylori, a Gram-negative bacterium, has persistently colonized the stomach of half of the human population (Perez-Perez, Rothenbacher & Brenner, 2004; Khalifa, Sharaf & Aziz, 2010)
The isolates belonged to patients with different types of gastric pathologies associated with H. pylori infection, as follows: 30 cases of Gastritis (G), 20 of Gastric Adenocarcinoma (GA), 28 of Atrophic Gastritis (AG), 30 of Intestinal Metaplasia, five of Gastritis concomitant with Duodenal Ulcer (G-DU) and two of Intestinal Metaplasia concomitant with Duodenal Ulcer (IM-DU) (Gutiérrez-Escobar et al, 2017)
A total of 142 sequences were used in this study: 86 were obtained from Colombian patients with different gastric diseases, and 34 sequences were obtained from reference strains from GenBank
Summary
Helicobacter pylori, a Gram-negative bacterium, has persistently colonized the stomach of half of the human population (Perez-Perez, Rothenbacher & Brenner, 2004; Khalifa, Sharaf & Aziz, 2010). This infection produces an asymptomatic inflammation of the gastric epithelium, but in some patients, it progresses toward a more severe clinical disease, such as ulcers and gastric cancer (Yakirevich & Resnick, 2013). How to cite this article Gutiérrez-Escobar et al (2018), Rapid evolution of the Helicobacter pylori AlpA adhesin in a high gastric cancer risk region from Colombia. It is higher in the Andes region than along the Pacific coast (Kodaman et al, 2014); this phenomenon has been called the Colombian enigma (Correa & Piazuelo, 2010)
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