The Relationship of a Helicobacter heilmannii Infection to the Mucosal Changes in Abattoir and Laboratory Pig Stomach

Purpose A pig ulcer model in which ulceration is reproducibly induced in the pars oesophagea (a tongue of the oesophageal squamous epithelium that extends into the pig stomach) by bile duct ligation (BDL) was used in this study to determine whether Helicobacter heilmannii (Hh) is a predisposing factor in the ulceration of this region. The infection with Hh and its relationship to ulceration and mucus integrity was examined.Methods We microscopically investigated the occurrence of spontaneous pars oesophageal ulceration in 33 pigs from a local abattoir and 5 pigs nurtured in pens in our surgical laboratory (JSM). Further groups of 5 and 6 JSM pigs underwent a sham operation and a BDL, respectively. Giemsa staining was used to detect Hh and purified mucin was characterized by gel filtration.Results Ten of 33 and 2 of 5 of the stomachs of abattoir and JSM pigs, respectively, were positive for Hh by Giemsa stain. Three of the 33 abattoir pigs showed ulceration in the pars oesophagea and none of these was Hh-positive. All six of the bile duct-ligated pigs showed ulceration in the pars but only 2 of these were Giemsa-positive. Only 8 of 33 of the abattoir pigs had 50% large polymeric mucin that was eluted in the void/excluded volume of a Sepharose 2B column.Conclusions There was no consistent correlation between an infection of the pig stomachs by Hh, an ulceration of the pars oesophagea, and mucin degradation. There was a significant difference between the percentage of polymeric mucin from the abattoir pigs and that of the JSM group (P < 0.003), the JSM group vs sham-operated pigs (P < 0.011), and JSM vs BDL pigs (P < 0.0005), but there appeared to be no association between the infectivity with Hh and mucin degradation.