Helicobacter pylori chromosomal DNA replication: current status and future perspectives

Helicobacter pylori causes gastritis, gastric ulcer and gastric cancer. Though DNA replication and its control are central to bacterial proliferation, pathogenesis, virulence and/or dormancy, our knowledge of DNA synthesis in slow growing pathogenic bacteria like H. pylori is still preliminary. Here, we review the current understanding of DNA replication, replication restart and recombinational repair in H. pylori. Several differences have been identified between the H. pylori and Escherichia coli replication machineries including the absence of DnaC, the helicase loader usually conserved in gram-negative bacteria. These differences suggest different mechanisms of DNA replication at initiation and restart of stalled forks in H. pylori.