This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Reprints and Permissions Copyright Information Books from ASM Press MicrobeWorld Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Datta, S. Articles by Chowdhury, A. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Datta, S. Articles by Chowdhury, A.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Journal of Clinical Microbiology, August 2003, p. 3737-3743, Vol. 41, No. 8
0095-1137/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JCM.41.8.3737-3743.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Virulence Genes and Neutral DNA Markers of Helicobacter pylori Isolates from Different Ethnic Communities of West Bengal, India

National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, Beliaghata, Calcutta 700010,¹ Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research, Calcutta 700020, India,⁴ Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri,² International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh³

Received 21 January 2003/ Returned for modification 27 February 2003/ Accepted 6 June 2003

Virulence-associated genes and neutral DNA markers of Helicobacter pylori strains from the Santhal and Oroan ethnic minorities of West Bengal, India, were studied. These people have traditionally been quite separate from other Indians and differ culturally, genetically, and linguistically from mainstream Bengalis, whose H. pylori strains have been characterized previously. H. pylori was found in each of 49 study participants, although none had peptic ulcer disease, and was cultured from 31 of them. All strains carried the cag pathogenicity island and potentially toxigenic s1 alleles of vacuolating cytotoxin gene (vacA) and were resistant to at least 8 µg of metronidazole per ml. DNA sequence motifs in vacA mid-region m1 alleles, cagA, and an informative insertion or deletion motif next to cagA from these strains were similar to those of strains from ethnic Bengalis. Three mobile elements, IS605, IS607, and ISHp608, were present in 29, 19, and 10%, respectively, of Santhal and Oroan strains, which is similar to their prevalence in Bengali H. pylori. Thus, there is no evidence that the gene pools of H. pylori of these ethnic minorities differ from those of Bengalis from the same region. This relatedness of strains from persons of different ethnicities bears on our understanding of H. pylori transmission between communities and genome evolution.

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Kundu, P., Mukhopadhyay, A. K., Patra, R., Banerjee, A., Berg, D. E., Swarnakar, S. (2006). Cag Pathogenicity Island-independent Up-regulation of Matrix Metalloproteinases-9 and -2 Secretion and Expression in Mice by Helicobacter pylori Infection. J. Biol. Chem. 281: 34651-34662 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Kauser, F., Hussain, M. A., Ahmed, I., Ahmad, N., Habeeb, A., Khan, A. A., Ahmed, N. (2005). Comparing Genomes of Helicobacter pylori Strains from the High-Altitude Desert of Ladakh, India. J. Clin. Microbiol. 43: 1538-1545 [Abstract] [Full Text]