Helicobacter pylori BabA Expression, Gastric Mucosal Injury, and Clinical Outcome

Abstract

Background & Aims-The blood group antigen binding adhesin (BabA) has been proposed to play a role in disease pathogenesis. This hypothesis is based on the functional BabA status as determined by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis to distinguish functional babA2 genes from nonfunctional babA1 genes.

Roles of Helicobacter pylori BabA in gastroduodenal pathogenesis

“…The authors hypothesized that the poly(A) sequences between the -10 and the -35 sites could be prone to slippage mutations that allow changes in the level of transcription of downstream genes. However, other studies could not confirm that the -10 to -35 spacing played an important role in regulating babA expression [30,31] . Further studies will be necessary to fully interrogate the roles of transcriptional regulation of BabA.…”

“…The sequence of these two genes differed only by the presence of a 10 bp deletion in the signal peptide sequence of babA1 that eliminates its translational initiation codon. However, my group recently found that all 80 strains from a panel of Western and East Asian isolates contained an intact ATG start codon in the babA gene [31] , and another group also reported the absence of the babA1 type deletion [11,12,29,30,32] . Overall, the absence of a translation initiation codon, as described for babA1 from CCUG17875, should be rare.…”

“…There currently are only a few studies that correlate the importance of BabA with clinical outcomes using immunoblot analyses [31,33,34] . My group recently performed large scale studies of 520 geographically diverse patients presenting with different clinical symptoms to evaluate BabA status by immunoblot analysis [31] .…”

“…My group recently performed large scale studies of 520 geographically diverse patients presenting with different clinical symptoms to evaluate BabA status by immunoblot analysis [31] . A total of 250 isolates from Western countries (150 strains from Colombia, 100 from the U.S.) and 270 isolates from East Asia (150 from Korea and 120 from Japan) were studied.…”

“…My group recently examined BabA protein and Le b binding activity for 80 strains (40 from Japan and 40 from Colombia) [31] . BabA protein was measured by immunoblot analyses using anti-BabA antiserum (AK277), and Le b binding activity was measured by binding of H pylori to 125 I-labeled fucosylated blood group antigens.…”