ISOLATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF HELICOBACTER SPP, FROM CANINE AND FELINE GASTRIC-MUCOSA

It is known that virtually all healthy adult dogs and cats harbor spir al helicobacters in their gastric mucosa, Three species, Helicobacter felis, Helicobacter bizzozeronii, and Helicobacter salomonis have been isolated in vitro from the gastric mucosa of these animals. The aims of this study were to evaluate the efficacy of an isolation method for canine and feline gastric helicobacters that has been developed at th e University of Helsinki; to estimate the prevalence and distribution of these taxa in the samples examined; and to assess the efficacy and validity of an extensive set of standardized conventional phenotypic t ests, whole-cell protein profiling, and ultrastructural analysis in id entifying the different species isolated from canine and feline gastri c mucose. We cultured 95 and 22 gastric mucosal biopsies from dogs and cats, respectively. Twenty-one H. bizzozeronii strains, 8 H. felis st rains, 8 H. salomonis strains, 3 mixed cultures, 2 ''Flexispira rappin i''-like organisms, and 3 as get uncharacterized strains were isolated from the dogs, and 3 H. felis strains were isolated from the cats. Th e methods used here yielded Helicobacter isolation rates of 51% from d ogs and 13.6% from cats, which exceed those reported previously. The m ain difficulties were primary isolation, mixed cultures, and identific ation to the species level, In the species identification, a detailed morphological examination was found to yield important phenotypic char acteristics. A large panel of biochemical and tolerance tests did not clearly differentiate the closely related species H. bizzozeronii, H. felis, and H. salomonis. Highly standardized whole cell protein profil ing was shown to be an excellent method for species identification. Im provements in culture conditions for these bacteria are still needed, especially for cats. A genetic identification method not requiring cul ture is needed for future studies of these very fastidious helicobacte rs, as the clinical significance and ecology of these species within t he gastric mucosa of the domestic carnivores remain largely unknown.