Adherence of Helicobacter pylori to cultured human gastric carcinoma cells

Aim: To examine the binding activity of Helicobacter pylori to cultured gastric epithelial cells using flow cytometry. Materials and methods: We evaluated the adherence of 15 H. pylori strains to cultured gastric cancer (MKN45) cells by flow cytometric analysis. Other bacterial strains were also analysed for their adherence to MKN45 cells. In addition, we examined the effect of fetuin on the adherence of H. pylori to MKN45 cells. Results: H. pylori strains adhered to MKN45 cells at rates of between 49 and 93.7%, with a mean of 75.3%. In contrast, the rates of Escherichia coli, Shigella flexneri, Vibrio cholerae and Yersinia enterocolitica adherence to MKN45 cells were 69.1, 5.9, 11.7 and 33.1%, respectively. Fetuin had no inhibitory effect on the adherence of H. pylori to MKN45 cells in the flow cytometric analysis. Conclusions: A flow cytometric analysis using MKN45 cells proved to be an objective and sensitive method for evaluating the adherence of H. pylori, showing close adherence between this organism and gastric epithelial cells.