The Tall Tale of the Helicobacter pylori Blood Group Antigen Binding Proteins

The features of Helicobacter pylori adhesins, their interactions with their host counterparts, regulated and selective gene expressions are amongst the many clever strategies this microorganism undertakes to survive the otherwise sterile gastric milieu. The ingenious crafting of these interactions and the respective host reactions govern, in part, an array of consequences ranging from asymptomatic infections to varying degrees of gastric inflammation, ulcer formation, atrophic, metaplastic and dysplastic changes and ultimately gastric cancer. The most well studied H. pylori adhesins include those which bind host blood group antigens; namely BabA and SabA. In this review, I attempt to tell the historical tale of how these moieties and their respective interactions with the host were discovered and characterized. The details of the subsequent applications of these findings in further genotyping studies will be later reviewed to avoid disruption of this crafty tale.