Composition and gene expression of the cag pathogenicity island in Helicobacter pylori strains isolated from gastric carcinoma and gastritis patients in Costa Rica.

The composition and in vitro expression of the cag pathogenicity island genes in a group of Helicobacter pylori strains obtained from patients suffering from chronic gastritis-associated dyspepsia (n = 26) or gastric carcinoma (n = 17) were analyzed. No significant difference in the distribution of the 10 studied regions was found between the cases and the controls. Nine strains did not harbor any of the selected regions: eight (30.8%) isolated from patients with gastritis only and one (5.9%) from a patient with gastric carcinoma. No association was found between the number of repeated sequences at the 3' end of the cagA gene or the presence of tyrosine phosphorylation motifs and the clinical origin of the strains. The virB10 homolog gene was the sole gene studied to be significantly expressed more often in cancer strains than in gastritis strains (P = 0.03).