A Novel Assay for Easy and Rapid Quantification of Helicobacter pylori Adhesion

Background Reducing adhesion of Helicobacter pylori to gastric epithelial cells could be a new way to counteract infections with this organism. We here present a novel method for quantification of Helicobacter pylori adhesion to cells. Methods Helicobacter pylori is allowed to adhere to AGS or MKN45g cells in a 96-well microtiter plate. Then wells are added saponin, which lyses the cells without affecting the bacteria. After addition of alamarBlue® (resazurin) and 1- to 2-hour incubation, fluorescence measurements can be used to quantify the number of adherent bacteria. Results By use of the method, we demonstrate that adhesion of both a sabA and babA deletion mutant of H. pylori is significantly reduced compared to the wild type. Conclusion The method offers a number of applications and may be used to compare the adherence potential of different strains of H. pylori to either cells or different materials or to screen for potential anti-adhesive compounds. The results presented here suggest that this easy and reproducible assay is well suited for quantitative investigation of H. pylori adhesion.