BIOLOGICAL IMAGES 

Minerva Biotecnologica 2004 December;16(4):289-97

Copyright © 2005 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Medical progress in Helicobacter pylori: Genomics at the rescue

Pellicano R. ¹, Ponzetto A. ^{1, 2}, Smedile A. ^{1, 2}, Rizzetto M. ^{1, 2}

¹ Department of Gastro-Hepatology, Molinette Hospital, Turin, Italy; ² Department of Internal Medicine, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

Helicobacter pylo­ri (H. pylo­ri) infec­tion rep­re­sents the ­major cau­sal ­agent of sev­er­al ­acute and chron­ic gas­trod­u­od­en­al dis­eas­es includ­ing pep­tic ­ulcer, gas­tric car­ci­no­ma, and muco­sa-asso­ciat­ed lym­phoid tis­sue lym­pho­ma. Moreover, ­this bac­te­ri­um has ­been ­involved in ­many extra­gas­tric man­i­fes­ta­tions. As genom­ic tech­niques ­improve and ­become ­more read­i­ly avail­able, research­ers are ­able to ­solve ­some of the unex­plained ­issues of H. pylo­ri path­o­gen­e­sis. To ­date it is pos­sible to dis­cov­er the func­tion of hun­dreds of ­gene prod­ucts and ­gain ­insight ­into post­tran­sla­tion­al mod­ifi­ca­tion ­through prot­e­om­ics. These con­sent to ­improve our under­stand­ing con­cern­ing its inter­ac­tion ­with the ­host, genet­ic diver­sity and the mech­a­nism under­ly­ing its evo­lu­tion and adap­tive poten­tial.