Augmentation of Helicobacter pylori urease activity by its specific IgG antibody: implications for bacterial colonization enhancement

Gastric colonization of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) occurs in a very early age via infected mothers having H. pylori-specific IgG antibodies that would be transplacentally transferred to infants. In addition, H. pylori urease-specific IgG was associated with chronic gastric atrophy and post-immunization gastritis is usually correlated with a strong local IgG response. These findings indicate that H. pylori-specific IgG antibodies, in particular its urease-specific IgG, may induce unfavorable influence on host resistance against H. pylori. Here, we show that we have found a unique H. pylori urease-specific IgG monoclonal antibody (MAb), termed S3, recognizing the conformational structure of the small subunit Ure-A, which enhanced the urease enzymatic activity. Such enhancement of the H. pylori urease activity induced by 1 microg of S3 was almost completely cancelled by simultaneously added the same amount of L2 MAb, which has a strong and specific inhibitory activity against H. pylori urease and recognizes a liner epitope of 8-mer peptide (F8: SIKEDVQF) within its large subunit Ure-B (Infect. Immun. 69: 6597, 2001). Intravenous pre-administration of purified S3 into BALB/c mice showed significant augmentation for gastric colonization with the susceptible strain Sydney Strain-1 (SS-1). To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that a H. pylori urease-specific IgG MAb induced an augmentation of their gastric colonization in vivo.