Helicobacter pylori bab genes during chronic colonization.

Helicobacter pylori BabA adhesin metastability could yield variants with potential for periodic activation and deactivation of their mediated adherence. babA/B or babB/A chimeras could play an important role in translational regulation. We investigated the frequency of different bab gene profiles in paired isolates from antrum and corpus recovered from patients with chronic gastritis. Isolates from 174 biopsies from 34 patients were included, and bab genes at the three common chromosomal loci were investigated. Inter-micro-niche variation was found in 1/4 patients, counting duplicate copies of babA or babB, babB/A or babA/B chimeras, opposite location of babA and babB or babC and babB, and absence of babB ATG translational codon. Truncated BabA was identified in 2/34 patients without inter-micro-niche variation. Isolates from 12/34 patients harbored babA/B or babB/A chimeras -either in one, several or all micro-niches indicating that chimera formation is a common mechanism to control BabA expression. To note, babA gene was absent in 11/34 patients, and in this population, babA/B chimeras which lack expression predominated over babB/A, able to exhibit Le(b) binding phenotype.