Formulation and Evaluation of Swellable and Floating Gastroretentive Ciprofloxacin Hydrochloride Tablets

Drugs that have narrow absorption window in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) will have poor absorption. For these drugs, gastroretentive drug delivery systems offer the advantage in prolonging the gastric emptying time. Swellable, floating, and sustained release tablets are developed by using a combination of hydrophilic polymer (hydroxypropyl methylcellulose), swelling agents (crospovidone, sodium starch glycolate, and croscarmelose sodium) and effervescent substance (sodium bicarbonate). Formulations are evaluated for percentage swelling, in vitro drug release, floating lag time, total duration of floating, and mean residence time (MRT) in the stomach. The drug release of optimized formulation follows the Higuchi kinetic model, and the mechanism is found to be non-Fickian/anomalous according to Krosmeyer–Peppas (n value is 0.68). The similarity factor (f ₂) is found to be 26.17 for the optimized formulation, which the release is not similar to that of marketed produced (CIFRAN OD®). In vivo nature of the tablet at different time intervals is observed in the radiographic pictures of the healthy volunteers and MRT in the stomach is found to be 320?±?48.99 min (n?=?6). A combination of HPMC K100M, crospovidone, and sodium carbonate shows the good swelling, drug release, and floating characters than the CIFRAN OD®.     

幽门螺杆菌检测技术研究进展及展望

幽门螺杆菌是(Helicobacter pylori,H. pylori)是导致人类多种胃肠疾病的主要病因,通过多种毒力因子导致各种疾病的发生和发展。鉴于目前幽门螺杆菌缺少商业化疫苗且多重耐药性问题日益严重,临床上对其根除效果不佳,因此,精准的检测技术是预防幽门螺杆菌感染的关键,也是评估感染后治疗效果的重要手段。幽门螺杆菌的检测方法主要包括尿素呼气试验、快速尿素酶试验、粪便抗原检测、血清学检查、内镜检查、组织学病理检查、聚合酶链式反应及细菌培养,每种方法在临床上皆存在优点与局限性。目前,对于幽门螺杆菌检测的“金标准”尚无统一定论,因此本文重点综述当前应用的幽门螺杆菌检测技术,分析其优点和局限性,并指明精准、快速且便捷的检测技术在流行病学调查等方面具备的优势,旨在为临床和研究提供科学的参考依据。     

Cyclodextrins for growth ofHelicobacter pylori and production of vacuolating cytotoxin

Growth ofHelicobacter pylori in liquid culture requires the addition of media supplements that often interfere with subsequent purification of bacterial antigens. In order to determine whether cyclodextrins can substitute for conventionalH. pylori growth supplements, we culturedH. pylori in the presence of five commercially available cyclodextrins. The effect of these compounds on the production of the vacuolating cytotoxin antigen was evaluated. Several cyclodextrins supported flourishing growth and permitted the consistent production of vacuolating cytotoxin. These data suggest that Brucella broth supplemented with cyclodextrins is an improved medium for bacterial culture and industrial production ofH. pylori antigens.     

Antimicrobial effects of antioxidants with and without clarithromycin on Helicobacter pylori

Increasing resistance to currently used antimicrobials has resulted in the evaluation of other agents that have antimicrobial activity against Helicobacter pylori. H. pylori American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) strain 49503 (a toxin-producing strain known to be associated with gastric cancer) was grown, a cell suspension prepared in 2 mL PBS and diluted 10-fold. One hundred L of this cell suspension was added to vitamin C 0.5%, vitamin E 0.5%, garcinol 100 g/mL, Protykin® (containing 50% rans-resveratrol) 100 g/mL and garcinol + Protykin® 100 g/mL in Lennox broth, and incubated for 16 h under microaerophilic conditions. Three replicates of 10 L from each 10^–7 dilution tube were plated, colonies were counted after 16 h, and growth of H. pylori was confirmed by the CLO® test. These colony counts were compared to control cultures without the addition of any antioxidants. The experiments were then repeated with the addition of 15 g/mL of clarithromycin to experimental and control samples. Enhanced killing of H. pylori by 37.6% was noted when vitamin C was added, which increased to 66% when clarithromycin was added, compared to controls (p < 0.05). With garcinol and Protykin® alone there was 91.4 and 87% killing of H. pylori, respectively, while a combination of garcinol + Protykin® resulted in 90.8% killing compared to controls (p < 0.05). When clarithromycin was added, there was 76.3% increased killing with garcinol alone, 55.3% with Protykin® alone, and 73.7% with garcinol + Protykin® compared to controls (containing clarithromycin) (p < 0.05). Vitamin E had no effect on H. pylori growth compared to controls. We conclude from this study that some antioxidants such as vitamin C, garcinol and Protykin®, but not vitamin E, may have potential as antimicrobial agents against H. pylori. (Mol Cell Biochem 270: 125–130, 2005)     

Essential role of magnesium ion in water for colonization of Helicobacter pylori in 2-week-old miniature pigs

This study was designed to determine whether magnesium ion in water would influence the colonization of Helicobacter pylori in 2-week-old miniature pigs. Groups A (2 pigs) and B (1 pig) were both fed a milk diet dissolved in drinking water, Group C (2 pigs) was fed a milk diet dissolved in deionized distilled water (DDW), and Group D (1 pig) was fed a milk diet dissolved in DDW supplemented with MgCl2. Groups B, C, and D were all challenged with H. pylori, and Group A was not. Necropsy was performed on the pigs on postinfection Day 5, and biopsy specimens were taken from 16 sites of the stomach. H. pylori were recovered from 11 of 16 sites in Group B, 1 of 32 sites in Group C, and 13 of 16 sites in Group D. On the other hand, the degree of lymphocyte infiltration increased in the order of Group A < Group B < Group C < Group D. These observations suggest that magnesium ion in drinking water is essential for the colonization of H. pylori in the pig stomach. Possible mechanisms for the lymphocyte infiltration are discussed.     

Cloning, expression, and purification of Helicobacter pylori L-asparaginase

Asparaginase from Helicobacter pylori (HpA) has been cloned and expressed in E. coli cells. The recombinant strain stably expressed catalytically active HpA. Optimization of culturing and expression conditions resulted in the expression level of the recombinant enzyme amounting up to 6% of total protein of the producer strain. A method developed for HpA purification included a single chromatographic stage and provided more than 60%-yield of the active enzyme. Specific asparaginase activity was 92 U/mg of protein, whereas the rate of glutamine hydrolysis was just 8.3 × 10^?3 U/mg, respectively. Data obtained indicate that due to low glutaminase specificity HpA may be employed as a non-toxic enzyme preparation for treatment of leukemia.     

Higher glucose level can enhance the H. pylori adhesion and virulence related with type IV secretion system in AGS cells

Background

Hyperglycemia increases the risk of gastric cancer in H. pylori-infected patients. High glucose could increase endothelial permeability and cancer-associated signaling. These suggest high glucose may affect H. pylori or its infected status.We used two strains to investigate whether H. pylori growth, viability, adhesion and CagA-phosphorylation level in the infected-AGS cells were influenced by glucose concentration (100, 150, and 200 mg/dL).

Results

The growth curves of both strains in 200 mg/dL of glucose were maintained at the highest optimal density after 48 h and the best viability of both strains were retained in the same glucose condition at 72 h. Furthermore, adhesion enhancement of H. pylori was significantly higher in 200 mg/dL of glucose as compared to that in 100 and 150 mg/dL (p < 0.05). CagA protein also increased in higher glucose condition. The cell-associated CagA and phosphorylated-CagA was significantly increased in 150 and 200 mg/dL of glucose concentrations as compared to that of 100 mg/dL (p < 0.05), which were found to be dose-dependent.

Conclusion

Higher glucose could maintain H. pylori growth and viability after 48 h. H. pylori adhesion and CagA increased to further facilitate the enhancement of cell-associated CagA and phosphorylated CagA in higher glucose conditions.     

Cloning of Helicobacter pylori urease subunit B gene and its expression in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.)

Vaccines produced by transgenic plants would have the potential to change the traditional means of production and inoculation of vaccines, and to reduce the cost of vaccine production. In the present study, an UreB antigen gene from a new Helicobacter pylori strain ZJC02 was cloned into the binary vector pBI121 which contains a CaMV35S promoter and a kanamycin resistance gene, and then transformed UreB into tobacco leaf-disc by Agrobacterium-mediated method. A total of 50 regenerated plants with kanamycin resistance were obtained in the selection media. The 35 putative transgenic individuals were tested and verified the presence and integration of the UreB into the nuclear genome of tobacco plants by PCR, PCR-southern, and Southern analyses. Expression of UreB gene in the tobacco plants was confirmed by RT-PCR and Western Blot analysis using polyclonal human antiserum. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the expression of Helicobacter pylori UreB antigen gene in a plant system, suggesting a major step in the production of plant-based vaccines for Helicobacter pylori.     

Contribution of ferrous iron to maintenance of the gastric colonization of Helicobacter pylori in miniature pigs

Our previous study showed that the colonization levels of Helicobacter pylori were higher in the stomachs of 5-day-old miniature pigs than in 2-week-old ones. As dietary factors can cause these differences, we compared two diets, i.e., Weanymilk and a similar formula with a higher concentration of Fe(II), Weanylobulin. The colonization levels in the fundic mucosa were significantly higher in 2-week-old pigs fed Weanylobulin than in those fed Weanymilk. Supplementing Weanylobulin with an iron chelator, deferoxamine mesylate, significantly lowered the bacteria counts in the gastric mucosa. Normal diets supplemented with Fe(II) in 2-month-old pigs caused significantly more sites of bacteria in the antrum compared with normal diets alone. In addition, ranitidine, an inhibitor of gastric acid secretion that reduces Fe(III) to Fe(II) in the stomach, decreased the bacteria counts in 10-month-old pigs. These results suggested that Fe(II) maintained the colonization levels of H. pylori in the stomach of the miniature pigs.     

Inhibition of growth and adhesion ofHelicobacter pylori using egg yolk antibodies

Helicobacter pylori is known as a key pathogen for chronic gastric and duodenal ulcers. Egg yolk antibody, IgY produced from chicken immunized withH. pylori antigen was tested for the inhibition of growth and adhesion ofH. pylori to gastric epithelial cell, AGS. The colony forming ofH. pylori was repressed by 30% using 1 mg/mL of IgY while that ofE. coli was only 7% with the same amount of IgY, which showed the growth inhibition ofH. pylori was mainly due to the specific interaction between IgY andH. pylori. The inhibition ofH. pylori adhesion to AGS was as high as 90% using 0.5 mg/mL of antibody only. More than 80% ofH. pylori attached to AGS could be detached treating with the same amount of IgY for one and a half hr. However, this effect was severely dependant on theH. pylori strains tested. The strain used for immunization of chicken was very sensitive to the antibody treatment but changing the test strain generally showed a variation in adhesion inhibition between 15 and 80%. Further studies are necessary to employ the egg yolk antibodies for the treatment ofH. pylori in vivo.     

Microwave-assisted sample preparation for rapid and sensitive analysis of H. pylori lipid A applicable to a single colony

The lipid A of Gram-negative bacteria plays a major role in the pathogenesis of bacterial infections. Lipid A diversity is observed both in the number and length of fatty-acid side chains and in the presence of terminal phosphate residues and associated modifications. In this report, we describe a new sample preparation method based on microwave-assisted enzymatic digestion and detergent-free mild hydrolysis, in conjunction with a MALDI-time-of-flight (TOF)/TOF analysis, to determine the structures of lipid A from Helicobacter pylori. The total time for sample preparation and mass spectrometric analysis is within 2 h and applicable to profiling the lipid A structures from dried bacterial cells on as little as 1 μg. The reliability of the technique was further demonstrated through the analysis of the lipid A from bacterial cells of different H. pylori strains. The phosphorylation and acylation patterns of lipid A could be elucidated using material from a single colony. Furthermore, we found unusual heptaacyl lipid A species present in H. pylori mutant that have not been previously reported, although the abundance was relatively low. The present study provides the first characterization of the lipid A component from a single bacterial colony sample by mass spectrometry.     

CagA phosphorylation EPIYA-C motifs and the vacA i genotype in Helicobacter pylori strains of asymptomatic children from a high-risk gastric cancer area in northeastern Brazil

Helicobacter pylori infection is one of the most common infectionsworldwide and is associated with gastric diseases. Virulence factors such as VacA andCagA have been shown to increase the risk of these diseases. Studies have suggested acausal role of CagA EPIYA-C in gastric carcinogenesis and this factor has been shownto be geographically diverse. We investigated the number of CagA EPIYA motifs and thevacA i genotypes in H. pylori strains fromasymptomatic children. We included samples from 40 infected children (18 females and22 males), extracted DNA directly from the gastric mucus/juice (obtained using thestring procedure) and analysed the DNA using polymerase chain reaction and DNAsequencing. The vacA i1 genotype was present in 30 (75%) samples,the i2 allele was present in nine (22.5%) samples and both alleles were present inone (2.5%) sample. The cagA-positive samples showed distinctpatterns in the 3’ variable region of cagA and 18 of the 30 (60%)strains contained 1 EPIYA-C motif, whereas 12 (40%) strains contained two EPIYA-Cmotifs. We confirmed that the studied population was colonised early by the mostvirulent H. pylori strains, as demonstrated by the high frequency ofthe vacA i1 allele and the high number of EPIYA-C motifs. Therefore,asymptomatic children from an urban community in Fortaleza in northeastern Brazil arefrequently colonised with the most virulent H. pyloristrains.     

Helicobacter pylori infection can change the intensity of gastric Lewis antigen expressions differently between adults and children

This study tested whether there were different expressions of gastric Lewis antigens between children and adults with Helicobacter pylori infection, and whether the difference was related to the infection outcome. About 68 dyspeptic children and 110 dyspeptic adults were enrolled to check H. pylori infection, its colonization density, and the related histology. Gastric Lewis antigens b (Le^b), x (Le^x), and sialyl-Lewis x (sialyl-Le^x) were immunohistochemically stained and scored for the intensity. The H. pylori-infected adults, but not the children, had a lower Le^b intensity over the antrum (p = 0.019) but higher Le^b intensity over the corpus (p = 0.001) than the non-infected ones. Over the antrum, both the H. pylori-infected children and adults had a lower Le^x and higher sialyl-Le^x intensity than those non-infected ones (p < 0.05). The H. pylori-infected adults had a higher bacterial density (p = 0.004) and Le^b intensity (p = 0.016) over the corpus than the H. pylori-infected children. For the H. pylori-infected adults, but not children, the corpus had a higher Le^b (p = 0.038) and lower Le^x (p = 0.005) intensity than the antrum. Furthermore, the H. pylori-infected adults expressed a higher Le^b and had a higher bacterial density than those with weak Le^b (antrum, p < 0.001; corpus, p = 0.001). In conclusion, H. pylori infection is associated with the intensity change of Lewis antigen expressions in the stomach. The changes of gastric Lewis antigen expressions are different between adults and children with H. pylori infection, which may exert different H. pylori colonization over the corpus between adults and children.     

嵌合鞭毛蛋白和壳聚糖/三聚磷酸(CS/TPP)纳米凝胶封装对鼻接种幽门螺杆菌黏附素诱导的免疫应答的佐剂作用

[目的] 幽门螺杆菌黏附素A（HpaA）是幽门螺杆菌疫苗的一种有希望的抗原。探索嵌合鞭毛蛋白（cFLN）和壳聚糖/三聚磷酸（CS/TPP）纳米凝胶包封对鼻递送抗原HpaA诱导的免疫应答增强的佐剂作用。[方法] 通过将鼠伤寒沙门氏菌鞭毛蛋白FliC的D0、D1结构域与幽门螺杆菌鞭毛FlaA的D2、D3结构域相结合,构建嵌合鞭毛蛋白cFLN。作为分子内佐剂,嵌合鞭毛蛋白cFLN与黏附素（HpaA）连接构建复合抗原cFLN-HpaA。cFLN、HpaA、cFLN-HpaA在重组大肠杆菌中表达,并通过Ni-NTA预装色谱柱进行纯化。使用离子凝胶法分别将cFLN、HpaA、cFLN-HpaA包封到壳聚糖/三聚磷酸（CS/TPP）纳米凝胶中。[结果] 成功表达和纯化了cFLN、HpaA和cFLN-HpaA,并用离子凝胶法将这3种抗原包封在CS/TPP/纳米凝胶中,制备了包封cFLN的CS/TPP纳米凝胶（cFLN-HpaA NG）、包封HpaA的CS/TPP纳米凝胶（HpaA NG）、包封cFLN-HpaA的CS/TPP/纳米凝胶（cFLN-HpaA NG）。经鼻免疫小鼠后,与HpaA相比,cFLN-HpaA分别导致血清中IgG、IgG1和IgA含量增加2.09倍、1.4倍和2.62倍。与cFLN、HpaA和cFLN-HpaA相比,cFLN NG、HpaA NG和cFLN-HpaA NG分别使血清中IgA、IgG、IgG1和IgG2a的含量增加了1.28至1.71倍。[结论] cFLN和CS/TPP NG可以显著增强鼻腔输送的HpaA诱导的体液免疫。通过检测鼻腔免疫后胃黏膜中IFN-γ、IL-4、IL-17和SIgA的含量,与HpaA相比,cFLN-HpaA分别诱导IFN-γ、IL-4和SIgA的含量增加1.38、1.16和1.58倍。与cFLN-HpaA相比,cFLN-HpaA NG分别使小鼠胃黏膜中IFN-γ、IL-4、IL-17和SIgA的含量增加1.81、1.71、2.16和2.1倍。表明cFLN和CS/TPP NG可以显著增强Th1和Th17型免疫应答。小鼠体内免疫原性研究表明,分子内佐剂cFLN和纳米凝胶包封不仅可以有效增强鼻腔输送HpaA诱导的体液免疫应答,而且还可以增强小鼠胃黏膜中的黏膜免疫应答——Th1和Th17型免疫应答。因此,这些结果表明,cFLN-HpaA NG可能是有希望的经鼻输送的用于预防幽门螺杆菌感染的疫苗系统。     

A proteomic approach for the identification of bismuth-binding proteins in Helicobacter pylori

Helicobacter pylori is a major human pathogen that can cause peptic ulcers and chronic gastritis. Bismuth-based triple or quadruple therapies are commonly recommended for the treatment of H. pylori infections. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying treatment with bismuth are currently not fully understood. We have conducted a detailed comparative proteomic analysis of H. pylori cells both before and after treatment with colloidal bismuth subcitrate (CBS). Eight proteins were found to be significantly upregulated or downregulated in the presence of CBS (20 μg mL⁻¹). Bismuth-induced oxidative stress was confirmed by detecting higher levels of lipid hydroperoxide (approximately 1.8 times) and hemin (approximately 3.4 times), in whole cell extracts of bismuth-treated H. pylori cells, compared with those from untreated cells. The presence of bismuth also led to an approximately eightfold decrease in cellular protease activities. Using immobilized-bismuth affinity chromatography, we isolated and subsequently identified seven bismuth-binding proteins from H. pylori cell extracts. The intracellular levels of four of these proteins (HspA, HspB, NapA and TsaA) were influenced by the addition of CBS, which strongly suggests that they interact directly with bismuth. The other bismuth-interacting proteins identified were two enzymes (fumarase and the urease subunit UreB), and a translational factor (Ef-Tu). Our data suggest that the inhibition of proteases, modulation of cellular oxidative stress and interference with nickel homeostasis may be key processes underlying the molecular mechanism of bismuth’s actions against H. pylori. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.