Prevalence of cagA, vacA, babA2 and iceA genes in H. pylori strains isolated from Colombian patients with functional dyspepsia

The clinical outcome of Helicobacter pylori infection has been particularly associated with virulence genotypes. These genotypes are useful as molecular markers in the identification of patients that are infected and at high risk for developing more severe gastric pathologies. Our main objective was to determine the prevalence of virulence genotypes cag A, vacA, iceA and babA2 of H.pylori, in patients with functional dyspepsia who are infected with the bacteria. H. pylori genotypes babA2 and cagA as well as vacA and iceA allelic variants were identified by PCR in 122 isolates resulting from 79 patients with functional dyspepsia. A high prevalence of genes cagA+ (71%), vacAs1am1 (34%), babA2 (57%) and iceA1 (87%) was found. The most frequent combined genotype found were cag A+/vacAs1am1/babA2+/iceA1 and cagA-/vacAs1am1/babA2+/iceA1, regardless of any family history of gastric cancer or MALT lymphoma. The very virulent genotype cagA+/vacAs1am1/babA2+/iceA1 prevailed in the studied patients with functional dyspepsia. Our results provide information about the prevalence of four of the more important virulent factors and constitute new evidence on the prevalence of the most virulent H. pylori genotype in patients with functional dyspepsia.