Localized suppression of inflammation at sites of Helicobacter pylori colonization

Abstract

While gastric adenocarcinoma is the most serious consequence of Helicobacter pylori infection, not all infected persons develop this pathology. Individuals most at risk of this cancer are those in whom the bacteria colonize the acid-secreting region of the stomach and subsequently develop severe inflammation in the gastric corpus. It has been reported anecdotally that male mice become infected with greater numbers of H. pylori bacteria than female mice. While investigating this phenomenon, we found that increased H. pylori infection densities in male mice were not related to antibody production, and this phenomenon was not normalized by gonadectomy. However, the gastric pH in male 129/Sv mic..