One of the major virulence factors of
H. pylori is the vacuolating cytotoxin (VacA), which causes cytoplasmic vacuolization in gastric epithelial cells (
41). Another well-characterized virulence factor is the cytotoxin-associated antigen (CagA), which is encoded by one of the genes located in the
cag pathogenicity island (PAI) (
8). Strains expressing
vacAs1 and/or
cagA are present at a higher frequency in patients with duodenal ulcers, atrophic gastritis, and gastric carcinoma (
2,
5,
13,
17,
23) and are referred to as type I strains. In contrast, type II strains, which lack the
cagA gene, present a nontoxic form of VacA and are considered less virulent (
37,
46). The blood group antigen binding adhesin (BabA), encoded by the
babA2 gene, has previously been shown to mediate adherence of
H. pylori to the Lewis b blood group antigen on human gastric epithelial cells (
6,
7,
19). The attachment may facilitate
H. pylori colonization and efficient delivery of virulence factors such as VacA or CagA to the host cells, resulting in severe gastric inflammation. It has indeed been shown that strains with
babA2, particularly when it is present together with
cagA and
vacAs1 (referred to as triple-positive strains here), are more often associated with duodenal ulcers and adenocarcinoma than the strains without
babA2 (
15). Moreover, triple-positive strains are detected more frequently in patients with severe histological alterations (
35,
36,
55). These results suggest that BabA may play an important role in the pathophysiology of
H. pylori infection.
However, a number of previous studies have not shown a correlation between the
babA2,
cagA, and
vacA genotypes and peptic ulcers in populations from different regions (
16,
25,
28,
29,
31,
51,
52,
54). Furthermore, although the prevalence of type I and triple-positive genotypes is high in Caucasian patients with gastritis (71 and 43%, respectively) (
15), only a small proportion of these individuals develop a severe disease. Our previous study also suggested that there was no significant correlation between the presence of
babA2 or
cagA and the gene expression pattern in the gastric mucosa, although due to the limited number of samples available no detailed analysis of
cagA,
babA2, and
vacAs1 triple-positive samples could be performed (
45). To further investigate the effect of these virulence factors on the induction of host immune responses, the inflammatory gene profile in the gastric mucosa in a large cohort of patients infected by triple-negative and triple-positive
H. pylori strains was characterized.
DISCUSSION
In the current study, the gene expression “signature” of
H. pylori-infected samples broadly overlapped with the “
H. pylori infection signature” in our previous report (
45). A number of TLRs and their signal pathway-related factors, such as lipopolysaccharide-binding protein and RP105 (related to the proliferation response of B cells to lipopolysaccharide), were induced by
H. pylori infection, suggesting that an innate immune response is evoked. Furthermore, the differentially expressed genes included the genes encoding selected chemokines and adhesion molecules that are involved in the recruitment of different inflammatory cells and may thus contribute to the activity and chronicity of gastritis.
Adherence is an important contributor to bacterial virulence, and BabA is one of the most well-studied
H. pylori adhesins (
1,
19). The intimate attachment of
H. pylori to the gastric mucosa activates the type IV secretion system, which results in the translocation of the CagA protein into the host cells and triggers inflammation (
30,
38). One study has shown that there is a significant correlation between the presence of strains carrying
babA2,
cagA, and
vacAs1 and the development of ulcers and gastric carcinoma (
15), although this has not been confirmed by other studies (
16,
25,
28,
29,
31,
51,
52,
54). Triple-positive strains are also associated with a degree of granulocyte infiltration and IL-8 expression in the gastric mucosa higher than the degree in strains lacking
babA2, suggesting that BabA is contributing to the severity of the inflammation (
35,
36).
However, our data show that the inflammatory gene expression profiles in the gastric mucosa are similar, regardless of the presence of the
babA2 gene. The effect of BabA-mediated adherence of
H. pylori on the host immune response thus seems to be less important than hitherto suggested. A possible explanation may be that detection of
babA2 gene expression by RT-PCR might not reflect the “true” adherence properties of bacteria (
31). The diversity of the
babA2 gene may result in variation in the Lewis b binding capacity among different strains (
18,
34), and an in vitro Lewis b adhesion assay might therefore be required. However, except in one individual, triple-positive 3, in which the strain was isolated and its Lewis b binding ability was confirmed, we were not able to obtain clinical isolates from the individuals infected with triple-positive strains and therefore could not evaluate their Lewis b binding abilities. It should also be noted that lack of expression of the
babA2 gene may not correlate to the genotype of the bacteria, as the expression of the gene can be completely inhibited by changes in the number of CT dinucleotide repeats in the 5′ region during infection (
9,
42). Furthermore, recombination between homologues or duplicated genes often occurs, which may result in switching off
babA2 expression in order to adapt to the environment during infection (
1,
42).
In our study, triple-negative and triple-positive
H. pylori strains strongly induced expression of ENA-78, a member of the C-X-C chemokine family, whereas IL-8, another C-X-C chemokine previously shown to be up-regulated by
H. pylori infection (
10,
40), was undetectable in our microarrays. However, using real-time PCR, we could detect increased expression of IL-8 in triple-negative (7.4-fold) and triple-positive (9.5-fold)
H. pylori-infected samples compared to noninfected samples. These data thus seem to contradict previous reports, which showed that IL-8 and ENA-78 were more highly expressed in triple-positive samples (
36) and more dominant in
cagA-positive or
vacAs1-positive samples than in
cagA-negative or
vacAs1-negative samples (
40,
50).
The
cagA gene is a marker for the
cag PAI. However, only 84% of the
cagA-positive strains carry an entire
cag PAI, suggesting that the
cagA gene may not be the best marker for the presence of the
cag PAI (
20). Several studies have shown that most of the 31 genes of the
cag PAI are required for induction of IL-8 secretion, whereas the
cagA gene itself is not required (
8,
11,
39). Therefore, if the
cagA-negative strains possess a
cag PAI, they could induce expression of IL-8. Conversely, if the
cagA-positive strains lack some crucial genes within the
cag PAI, the induction of IL-8 could be weakened. This may explain why expression of IL-8 was up-regulated in all the infected samples while there was no difference between the two subgroups. In addition, it was previously reported that a novel virulence factor-encoding gene,
oipA (outer inflammatory protein), may be important for clinical presentation, gastric inflammation, and mucosal IL-8 production, as o
ipA “on” status, rather than expression of the
cagA,
babA2, and
vacAs1 genes, was significantly associated with a high level of mucosal IL-8 expression (
47,
53). However, a recent study showed that the status of
oipA is not related to IL-8 expression in vitro, and the different results in the studies may be due to the use of different
H. pylori strains (
12).
Although many studies have shown that the presence of either
cagA or
vacAs1 or both is associated with a more severe inflammatory response and more pronounced pathological changes (
2,
33,
35,
44,
55), there have also been a number of reports suggesting that the expression levels of some cytokines, such as IL-7, IL-10, IL-16, and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), are independent of the presence of
cagA or
vacAs1 (
3,
21,
22,
40,
48,
49). Moreover, it has also been shown that expression of IFN-γ, TNF-α, and IL-12R β2 was similar in biopsies from patients carrying triple-negative and biopsies from patients carrying triple-positive strains, although the latter showed a higher level of bacterial colonization and granulocyte infiltration (
36). More than 90% of the strains present in East Asia are
cagA vacAs1 positive, and a high prevalence of
babA2 or triple-positive genotypes has been found in Western patients with gastritis (
15). Yet only a small proportion of these individuals develop a severe disease. This suggests that the expression of the
cagA,
babA2, and
vacAs1 genes is not sufficient to induce a severe gastroduodenal disease. Furthermore, the polymorphisms in genes encoding some cytokines (IL-1β, IL-1 receptor antagonist, TNF-α, and IFN-γ) have been correlated with
H. pylori-associated gastric adenocarcinoma and peptic ulcers (
4), suggesting that host factors and environmental factors (
26,
27), such as smoking and diet, need to be considered in addition to the bacterial virulence factors.
In summary, our current data support the hypothesis that the virulence factors of H. pylori, BabA, CagA, and VacA, are not associated with a selective gene expression pattern in the infected human gastric mucosa. The importance of BabA for induction of gastric inflammation and immune responses needs to be investigated further, and a method to detect BabA-mediated adherence of the infecting strain is also needed.