THE GASTRIC PATHOGEN Helicobacter pylori infects the human stomach of more than half of the world’s population and represents one of the most frequent causes of inflammatory processes in the stomach. The association of H. pylori infection and development of peptic ulcer disease and gastric cancer is well established. ADHERENCE to the gastric epithelium is important for colonization and to establish a chronic infection. The gastric milieu changes during pathogenesis and H. pylori use different adherence proteins (adhesins) for interaction to healthy and inflamed gastric epithelium. The focus of our research is the mechanisms that are involved in the ability to adjust adhesin expression levels and the properties to cycle between an adherent and a non-adherent phenotype. We use the adhesin-receptor interactions, BabA and its interaction to ABO blood group antigens and the SabA adhesin and its interaction to the inflammation-associated receptor structures sialyl-Lewis x/a antigens. Read More (Anna Arnqvist's group at Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics)

PI: Anna Arnqvist