The gastric glands serve as habitat for pathogens: MEDICINE & HEALTH: Science Times

Stanford University researchers looked at how Helicobacter pylori has the ability to survive in the hostile environment of the stomach. Lead authors Connie Fung and Manuel Amieva of the university find a particular refuge in a specialty niche in the gastric glands to maintain their longevity.

Previous research conducted by Amieva Lab and others demonstrate that H. pylori colonies attach to epithelial cells located at the bottom of the gastric glands. It is badumed that its refuge acts as a stable bacterial reservoir.

High resolution imaging and mapping techniques were used to visualize how H. pylori established, propagated and persisted in the gastric glands. These bacteria were marked by different fluorescent colors. CLARITY is a technique used to treat infected stomachs to show transparent tissues. The organs can be viewed in their entirety. The researchers found that "a small number of bacteria act as" founders "that establish themselves within individual gastric glands, replicate and form colonies, and afterwards the bacteria spread. locally in the adjacent glands, thus forming large "islands" of the first glandular colony.These patches persist over time and prevent any incoming bacteria from establishing in the glandular space. this observation, the mutant strains of H. pylori that can not colonize the glands are supplanted by wild-type bacteria in Xpress Medical.

These results demonstrate that a stable reservoir of H. pylori is comfortable in a specialized niche in the gastric glands.

"We hope that by understanding the bacterial attributes and hosts needed to maintain these bacterial hiding places, therapeutic targets may replace persistent aberrant colonization of the mucosa," said Manuel Amieva, pediatric infectious disease specialist and lead author of the report. . "These principles can go beyond H. pylori and improve our ability to permanently decolonize patients infected with pathogenic bacteria and antibiotic-resistant microbes, and / or replace them with less virulent or more beneficial microflora."