Assessment of DNA and Protein Molecular Fingerprinting Methods for Strain Identification of Helicobacter pylori

The increasing evidence linking Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) with gastroduodenal disease has led to the need for sensitive methods for identifying H. pyloriisolates. The study of H. pylori ecology and its role in infection is hindered by the lack of reliable, easily applicable methods of strain identification. Differences between strains are, however, revealed by molecular fingerprinting techniques and the purpose of the present study was to assess the utility of genomic DNA restriction endonuclease digests, restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) using Southern blot hybridization, and one-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (1-D PAGE) protein patterns for high resolution identification.