The role of small molecular weight compounds to increase vacuolation induced by VacA toxin in vitro

Abstract VacA is a vacuolation protein toxin secreted by Helicobacter pylori . Many compounds have been implicated in the regulation of VacA toxin activity. In this study, regulation of cell vacuolation induced by VacA was observed with the addition of glycine, glycine hydrochloride, xylitol, and taurine by neutral red dye uptake assay using gastric human epithelial cell cultures. Glycine, xylitol, and taurine increased cell vacuolation significantly after 48 h ( p r ) of 0.986 from 0.2 to 6.25 mM. In this concentration range and at the same time point, the pH decrease was negatively correlated with vacuolating activity ( r  = 0.922, p