Lipopolysaccharide O-antigen profiles of Helicobacter pylori strains from Southwest China

Background Helicobacter pylori lipopolysaccharide (LPS) structures vary among strains of different geographic origin.

The aim of this study was to characterize the LPS O-antigen profiles of H. pylori strains isolated from Southwest China, and to further analyze the association of Lewis antigen expression with clinical outcomes and antibiotic resistance.

Results A total of 71 H. pylori isolates from Southwest China were included for LPS profiling by silver staining and Western blotting after SDS-PAGE electrophoresis.

We demonstrated that all the clinical isolates had the conserved lipid A and core-oligosaccharide, whereas the O-antigen domains varied significantly among the isolates.

Compared with the common presence of the glucan/heptan moiety in LPS O-antigen structure of European strains, the clinical isolates in this study appeared to lack the glucan/heptan moiety.

The expression frequency of Le^x, Le^y, Le^a, and Le^b was 66.2% (47/71), 84.5% (60/71), 56.3% (40/71), and 31.0% (22/71), respectively.

In total, the expression of type II Le^x and/or Le^y was observed in 69 (97.2%) isolates, while type I Le^a and/or Le^b were expressed in 49 (69.0%) isolates.

No association of Lewis antigen expression with clinical outcomes or with antibiotic resistance was observed.

Conclusions H. pylori strains from Southwest China tend to produce heptan-deficient LPS and are more likely to express type I Lewis antigens as compared with Western strains.

This may suggest that H. pylori evolves to change its LPS structure for adaptation to different hosts.