H. pylori is an S-shaped microaerophilic, gram-negative bacterium which
colonizes the epithelial stomach surface of half the world’s population. The colonisation
of H. pylori in human stomachs results in chronic gastritis and sometimes ulcers or
gastric cancer. Infection mostly occurs during childhood and unless treated lasts for life.
Treatment of H. pylori is relatively complicated and requires antibiotics to which the
bacterium is sensitive. Thus a microbiological culture determining antibiotic resistance
is a prerequisite for rational antibiotic treatment. Unfortunately, routine clinical practice
is often done without such a culture, and hence, the treatment is frequently empirical,
not based on antibiotic resistance data. In this chapter we will elaborate on how to
isolate and culture this fastidious bacterium.
Keywords: Helicobacter pylori, morphology, genome, ulcers, chronic gastritis,
plasmids, gene regulation, strain diversity.
