Characterization of a Helicobacter pylori strain with high biofilm-forming ability

Wilkinson, D, Alsharaf, L, Thompson, S, Paulin, A, Takor, R, Zaitoun, A, Robinson, K, Thomas, J ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1599-9123, McVicker, G ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6967-5968 and Winter, J ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3582-7596, 2023. Characterization of a Helicobacter pylori strain with high biofilm-forming ability. Journal of Medical Microbiology, 72 (6): 001710. ISSN 0022-2615

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Abstract

Introduction. Helicobacter pylori is highly polymorphic, and some strains are much more likely to cause disease than others. Biofilm formation can help bacteria to survive antibiotic treatment, immune attack and other stresses, promoting persistent infection.

Hypothesis/Gap Statement. We hypothesized that H. pylori isolates from patients with more severe H. pylori-associated disease would be better at forming biofilms than isolates from patients with less severe disease.

Aim. We initially aimed to determine whether or not the biofilm-forming ability of H. pylori isolates was associated with disease in the UK-based patients from whom the bacteria were isolated.

Methodology. Biofilm-forming ability of H. pylori isolates was determined using a crystal violet assay on glass coverslips. The complete genome sequence of strain 444A was generated by hybrid assembly of Nanopore MinION and Illumina MiSeq data.

Results. Although we found no associations between biofilm-forming ability of H. pylori and disease severity in patients, we discovered that strain 444A had particularly high biofilm-forming ability. This strain had been isolated from a patient with gastric ulcer disease and moderate to severe scores for H. pylori-induced histopathology. Analysis of the genome of the high biofilm-forming H. pylori strain 444A revealed that it possesses numerous biofilm- and virulence-associated genes and a small cryptic plasmid encoding a type II toxin–antitoxin system.

Conclusion. There is substantial variation in biofilm-forming ability in H. pylori, but this was not significantly associated with disease severity in our study. We identified and characterized an interesting strain with high biofilm-forming ability, including generation and analysis of the complete genome.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Medical Microbiology
Creators:	Wilkinson, D., Alsharaf, L., Thompson, S., Paulin, A., Takor, R., Zaitoun, A., Robinson, K., Thomas, J., McVicker, G. and Winter, J.
Publisher:	Microbiology Society
Date:	9 June 2023
Volume:	72
Number:	6
ISSN:	0022-2615
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1099/jmm.0.001710 DOI 1770738 Other
Rights:	© 2023 the authors. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. This article was made open access via a Publish and Read agreement between the Microbiology Society and the corresponding author’s institution.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Science and Technology
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	15 Jun 2023 10:01
Last Modified:	15 Jun 2023 10:01
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/49209

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