How is H pylori adhesion to gastric cells associated with MUC1 mucin VNTR size?

The Gram negative bacterium H pylori is involved in the pathogenesis of several gastrointestinal diseases, ultimately leading to gastric carcinoma. Adhesion of the bacteria to the gastric mucosa is an essential step for colonization and infection.

It is therefore important to know factors that influence the binding of the bacteria to gastric cells. MUC1, a mucin with a highly variable repetitive region (VNTR), has been recently identified as an H pylori binding target. In this work we tested the hypothesis that MUC1 VNTR polymorphism affects H pylori adhesion to gastric cells and thus plays an important role in the colonization of gastric mucosa.

Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)-based adhesion assays were performed to measure the adhesion of different H pylori strains (HP26695 and HPTx30a) to gastric carcinoma cell lines (GP202 and MKN45) and GP202 clones expressing recombinant MUC1 with different VNTR lengths. The research article to be published on March 7, 2008 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology.

The results showed that MUC1 VNTR polymorphism influences the binding of H pylori to gastric cells, with the higher adhesion levels observed in clones with larger VNTR regions. Furthermore, higher adhesion was observed in co-cultures with the pathogenic strain (HP26695) when compared to the non-pathogenic strain (HPTx30a) and GP202 cell line when compared to the MKN45 cell line. This work contributes to the understanding of the interplay between host and bacterial factors in H pylori infection pathogenesis.

Reference: Costa NR, Mendes N, Marcos N T, Reis C A, Caffrey T, Hollingsworth MA, Santos-Silva F. Relevance of MUC1 mucin variable number of tandem repeats polymorphism in H pylori adhesion to gastric epithelial cells .World J Gastroenterol 2008; 14(9): 1411-1414
http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/14/1411.asp

Correspondence to: Filipe Santos-Silva, Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias s/n, Porto 4200465, Portugal. fsilva@ipatimup.pt
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World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG), a leading international journal in gastroenterology and hepatology, has established a reputation for publishing first class research on esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, colorectal cancer, and H pylori infection for providing a forum for both clinicians and scientists. WJG has been indexed and abstracted in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch) and Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Index Medicus, MEDLINE and PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Abstracts Journals, Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CAB Abstracts and Global Health. ISI JCR 2003-2000 IF: 3.318, 2.532, 1.445 and 0.993. WJG is a weekly journal published by WJG Press. The publication dates are the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th day of every month. The WJG is supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30224801 and No. 30424812, and was founded with the name of China National Journal of New Gastroenterology on October 1, 1995, and renamed WJG on January 25, 1998.

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