A Method for Short-Term Culture of Human Gastric Epithelial Cells to Study the Effects of Helicobacter pylori

In vitro studies of Helicobacter pylori pathogenesis mostly rely on the use of tumor-derived cell lines. Although invaluable, tumor cell lines are not representative of the normal cell physiology. Thus, the use of primary gastric epithelial cell cultures provides an important tool for investigating the mechanisms underlying H. pylori infection, as well as for validating the in vitro findings obtained with tumor-derived cell line models. Here we describe a method for isolation and short-term culture of human primary gastric epithelial cells obtained from gastric biopsy specimens, and the use of these cells to evaluate the effect of H. pylori on the junctional adhesion molecule-A protein.