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Clinical and Vaccine Immunology, April 2007, p. 442-450, Vol. 14, No. 4
1071-412X/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/CVI.00434-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Serological Assays for Identification of Human Gastric Colonization by Helicobacter pylori Strains Expressing VacA m1 or m2 ^,

Chandrabali Ghose,^1, Guillermo I. Perez-Perez,^1,2* Victor J. Torres,³ Marialuisa Crosatti,² Abraham Nomura,⁴ Richard M. Peek Jr.,⁵ Timothy L. Cover,^3,6 Fritz Francois,^2,7 and Martin J. Blaser^1,2,7

Department of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York,¹ Department of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York,² Departments of Medicine and Microbiology and Immunology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee,³ University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii,⁴ Division of Gastroenterology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee,⁵ Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee,⁶ Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, New York, New York⁷

Received 17 November 2006/ Returned for modification 11 January 2007/ Accepted 19 January 2007

The Helicobacter pylori vacA gene encodes a secreted protein (VacA) that alters the function of gastric epithelial cells and T lymphocytes. H. pylori strains containing particular vacA alleles are associated with differential risk of disease. Because the VacA midregion may exist as one of two major types, m1 or m2, serologic responses may potentially be used to differentiate between patients colonized with vacA m1- or vacA m2-positive H. pylori strains. In this study, we examined the utility of specific antigens from the m regions of VacA as allele-specific diagnostic antigens. We report that serological responses to P44M1, an H. pylori m1-specific antigen, are observed predominantly in patients colonized with m1-positive strains, whereas responses to VacA m2 antigens, P48M2 and P55M2, are observed in patients colonized with either m1- or m2-positive strains. In an Asian-American population, serologic responses to VacA m region-specific antigens were not able to predict the risk of development of gastric cancer.

Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://cvi.asm.org/.

Published ahead of print on 31 January 2007.

Present address: Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.