Isolation of Helicobacter pylori from saliva

Abstract

Helicobacter pylori was grown in low numbers from the saliva of one of nine patients who were positive for gastric H. pylori. The saliva-derived isolate from this patient was identical to the antral biopsy-derived isolate from the same patient and differed from isolates cultured from the antral biopsies of all other patients by soluble-protein electrophoresis, restriction endonuclease DNA analysis, and Southern blot hybridization. This is the first observation, to our knowledge, of the recovery of viable H. pylori from saliva.