Identification of immunodominant antigens from Helicobacter pylori and evaluation of their reactivities with sera from patients with different gastroduodenal pathologies

Colonization of the gastric mucosa by Helicobacter pylori is the major caus e of gastroduodenal pathologies in humans. Studying the outcome of the humo ral immune response directed against this gastric pathogen may contribute s ubstantially to vaccine development and to the improvement of diagnostic te chniques based on serology. By using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, 2 9 proteins from H. pylori G27 were identified which strongly react with ser a derived from H. pylori-infected patients suffering from different gastrod uodenal pathologies. These antigens were characterized by mass spectrometry and proved to correspond to products of open reading frames predicted by t he H. pylori genome sequence. The comparison of the antigenic patterns reco gnized by these sera revealed no association of specific H. pylori antigens with antibodies in patients with particular gastroduodenal pathologies.