Phylogeny of a novel "Helicobacter heilmannii" organism from a Japanese patient with chronic gastritis based on DNA sequence analysis of 16S rRNA and urease genes.

"Helicobacter heilmannii" is an uncultivable spiral-shaped bacterium inhabiting the human gastric mucosa. It is larger and more tightly-coiled than H. pylori. We encountered a patient with chronic gastritis infected a "H. heilmannii"-like organism (HHLO), designated as SH6. Gastric mucosa derived from the patient was orally ingested by specific pathogen free mice. Colonization of the mice by SH6 was confirmed by electron microscopy of gastric tissue specimens. In an attempt to characterize SH6, 16S rRNA and urease genes were sequenced. The 16S rRNA gene sequence was most similar (99.4%; 1,437/1,445 bp) to HHLO C4E from a cheetah. However, the urease gene sequence displayed low similarity (81.7%; 1,240/1,516 bp) with HHLO C4E. Taxonomic analysis disclosed that SH6 represents a novel strain and should constitute a novel taxon in the phylogenetic trees, being discriminated from any other taxon, with the ability of infecting human gastric mucosa.