Role of the alpAB proteins and lipopolysaccharide in adhesion of Helicobacter pylori to human gastric tissue

The attachment of the bacterial pathogen Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) to gastric epithelial cells is commonly believed to be required for an efficient and persistent colonization of the human stomach as well as for host cell trans-membrane signaling. In the past, several putative adhesins were postulated, including the outer membrane proteins AlpAB and the bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) presenting oligomeric Lewis x (Le(x)) sugar components. We investigated the AlpAB-mediated and the Le(x)-dependent binding by knockout mutagenesis in one distinct strain, H. pylori P1. We show here that the mutagenesis of either alpA and/or alpB dramatically reduced the adherence of H. pylori P1 to a given gastric biopsy section. None of these mutations influenced the surface exposure of the Le(x) antigen, suggesting that the assembly and/or presentation of LPS is independent of the AlpAB outer membrane proteins. However, a truncation of the LPS O-side chain by a galE mutation abolished the presentation of the Le(x) epitope. This Le(x)-negative strain did not show any significant reduction in its binding capacity to the gastric tissue, when compared with the corresponding wild-type strain. From these data we conclude that the AlpAB-specific adherence is independent of the composition of the LPS and that the oligomeric Le(x) structure does not confer binding to the gastric biopsy material used in this study. As the adhesion properties of our H. pylori strain P1 vary in dependence on the respective biopsy donor it is assumed that the surface-exposed Le(x) epitope recognizes a different host cell receptor than AlpAB, which was probably not present in the tissue sections used in this study.