title: Non-Helicobacter bacterial flora rarely develops in the gastric mucosal layer of children.
abstract: Non-Helicobacter bacteria can be cultured from the gastric mucosa in adults but in children, there are no studies about such microflora. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to clarify whether gastric biota develops in children. In 10 children and 10 adults or elderly (5 H. pylori-infected and 5 uninfected in each group), biopsy specimens of the gastric antrum and corpus and gastric juice were studied for bacterial examinations and the data were compared between both age groups in relation to H. pylori status and luminal pH. Bacterial genera and species were analyzed using both culture and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with the 52 genus- and species-specific primer sets. Non-Helicobacter bacteria in the mucosa were cultured from all adult patients, whereas microorganisms were cultured in only one child (p < .001). Gastric pH was lower in children (median, 1.4) than in adults (median, 2.6) (p < .005). The grade of endoscopic gastric atrophy was moderate or severe in 8 adults, but absent or mild in all 10 children. Among adults, there was a significant positive correlation between gastric pH and total bacterial counts of both the mucosa and juice. These data indicate that impaired gastric acid secretion associated with long-term H. pylori infection enables non-Helicobacter bacteria to colonize in the human stomach. Such microorganisms rarely colonize in the gastric mucosa in children regardless of H. pylori status.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Seiryo-machi, Sendai, Japan. skato@ped.med.tohoku.ac.jp
authors.forename: Seiichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kato
authors.forename: Shigeru
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fujimura
authors.forename: Katsunori
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kimura
authors.forename: Tomoko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nishio
authors.forename: Shiro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hamada
authors.forename: Takanori
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Minoura
authors.forename: Munehiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oda
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001483:Base Sequence; D001707:Biopsy, Needle; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000032:analysis; D004415:Dyspepsia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005745:Gastric Acidity Determination; D005753:Gastric Mucosa / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000473:pathology; D005757:Gastritis, Atrophic / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005773:Gastroscopy; D016481:Helicobacter Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D016480:Helicobacter pylori / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006801:Humans; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011336:Probability; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012307:Risk Factors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial