Helicobacter pylori supernatants cause epithelial cytoskeletal disruption that is bacterial strain and epithelial cell line dependent but not toxin VacA dependent

We show here that Helicobacter pylori broth culture supernatants disrupt the actin cytoskeleton of epithelial cell lines, leading to cell rounding and apoptosis through anoikis. We demonstrate that there are marked quantitative differences between strains and that there are different cell line sensitivities. By constructing VacA null isogenic mutants, we show that the effect is not due to the vacuolating cytotoxin.