Possible Association of Helicobacter pullorum with Lesions of Vibrionic Hepatitis in Poultry

Helicobacter pullorum has been recently described as a new species of Campydobacter-like organisms17. Isolates have been recovered from poultry and from human cases of gastroenteritis so far4. Chronic infection of the gastric mucosa with its relative, H. pylori, has been commonly associated with chronic inflammation and peptic ulcer disease6, gastric cancer11, and some types of gastric lymphoma12. However, many of the newly described Helicobacter species, and the campylobacters recently reassigned to the genus Helicobacter are not gastric, but rather intestinal pathogens9,10,16,18. Interestingly, recent evidence has implicated two of these intestinal Helicobacter species, H. hepaticus and H. bilis, in inflammatory liver disease and liver cancer of mice7,8,19. The ability to cause chronic infection, associated inflammation, and possibly cancers as well, may thus be a biological phenomenon common to the Helicobacter group of microorganisms.