Abstract
Helicobacter pylori, a Gram-negative bacterium, inhabits on the epithelial cells of the human stomach. H. pylori, the most common bacterial infection in human, colonizes more than half of the human population. Chronic infection by this peculiar pathogen is associated with more severe gastrointestinal diseases including peptic ulcers, gastric adenocarcinoma and gastric mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma. Although the majority of patients with severe gastrointestinal diseases can be healed by the standard triple therapy, some treatment failures might occur due to development of acquired resistance. In an aim to develop new antibiotic agents, our laboratory has targeted a unique pathway, the shikimate pathway that only exists in the algae, higher plants, bacteria and fungi, but not in the mammals. It is an important metabolic pathway because it can link metabolism of carbohydrates to biosynthesis of aromatic compounds. Therefore, those enzymes involving in this pathway are potential to be the therapeutic target for the treatment. In this study, the compound, TH68, is used as the inhibitor of this pathway. We used fifty-five mice and established an infectious C3H/HeN mice model. Our result shows that TH68 could decrease the number of H. pylori in stomach and reduce the inflammation caused by H. pylori. But it can’t eradicate H. pylori efficiently. Therefore, TH68 may combine with other antibiotics and acts as an adjuvant to increase the eradication rate.