H. pylori is an important human pathogen that infects the stomach of approximately one-half the world’s population. The clinical outcome of infection is variable. Although most of those infected will have no clinical sequelae, 5 to 10% will develop peptic ulcer, and about 1 to 3% (~50 million individuals worldwide) will progress to gastric cancer, the second most frequent cause of cancer-related death. For many reasons, including cost factors, treating all asymptomatic carriers of H. pylori with antibiotics is neither feasible nor recommended. However, since only some individuals with H. pylori infection will develop serious clinical sequelae, much effort is focused on identifying predictors of clinical disease.

To date, most of these investigations have addressed bacterial factors, such as the cag pathogenicity island (cag PAI), which is a well-studied bacterial locus linked to H. pylori-associated disease. Little is currently known about what host factors might predict clinical outcome of H. pylori infection.

Researchers at the University of California have identified a common genetic variation in a specific gene that may be useful in predicting susceptibility to H. pylori disease. The variation is detectable by a relatively simple assay of genomic DNA obtained from blood or saliva samples. The researchers have identified that the variability in this specific gene may predict genetic susceptibility and clinical outcome of H. pylori infection.

File Number: 20613 

Web site: http://techtransfer.universityofcalifornia.edu/...

Disease: Digestive System

Other Information:

Applications

The invention provides methods of determining the risk of an individual for developing disease resulting from an H. pylori infection and for determining an increased susceptibility of an individual to a disease caused by H. pylori infection.

Early detection of susceptibility to H. pylori infection can lead to safe prophylactic treatment with antibiotics that may prevent serious subsequent diseases, including peptic ulcer and stomach cancer. Specimens necessary for this assay can be easily obtained from blood or even saliva, and could be conveniently shipped at room temperature for future analysis.