Helicobacter pylori Genome Project (HpGP)

Investigators in the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch, Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch, Biostatistics Branch, and the NCI Center for Cancer Research, in collaboration with an international, multi-disciplinary team, have created an international biobank of clinically annotated genetic and epigenetic variations of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), the only confirmed bacterial carcinogen. H. pylori causes more than 850,000 cases of gastric cancer each year.

The goal of the study was to sequence 1000 strains of H. pylori from populations around the globe that experience both low and high risk of gastric cancer and identify long-term outcomes of infection and associations between persistent infection and the gastric carcinogenesis cascade.

Principal Investigators

M. Constanza Camargo, Metabolic Epidemiology Branch

graphical representation of h pylori bacterium and genomic landscape

Helicobacter pylori Genome Project Results

The researchers sequenced the genomes of over one thousand strains of the bacterial carcinogen, Helicobacter pylori.

Charles Rabkin, Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch

Research Findings

Thorell K and Muñoz-Ramírez ZY, et al. The Helicobacter pylori Genome Project: Insights into H. pylori population structure from analysis of a worldwide collection of complete genomes. Nat Commun. 2023.

Data Availability

NCBI GenBank BioProject accession code PRJNA529500

NCBI or equivalent public accessions for the reference set

Complete HpGP genome dataset and the 255 reference genomes in Zenodo.