It's very difficult to culture Helicobacter. It takes a special media (with
iron ions and mucin and horse serum) and at near anaerobic conditions. 

When you find positive biopsies, cut additional 10-20 slides, 1 section
each. There will still be enough tissue left in the block, and you will have
your control slides.

Also, many (unstained) micro-organims control slides, over time, will show
decrease to no staining. So cut enough for 3-6 months. Sometimes, with some
commercial companies, they cut their slides and store them until someone
orders them, which could be a year to two later.

Peggy A. Wenk, HTL(ASCP)SLS
William Beaumont Hospital
Royal Oak, MI 48073


-----Original Message-----
From: histonet-bounces@lists.utsouthwestern.edu
[mailto:histonet-bounces@lists.utsouthwestern.edu] On Behalf Of Yvonne Jones
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2006 3:18 AM
To: histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu
Subject: [Histonet] We are having a lot of difficulty finding an
inexpensiveyet reliable source for helicobactor pylori

We are having a lot of difficulty finding an inexpensive yet reliable source
for helicobactor pylori control tissue.  We are currently purchasing them,
but often they don't work consistently, and we've gotten mixed results using
slides even from the same box.  In short, we need a new source.

This is my question:  We have had success culturing all of our other
bacteria; then after we grow a sufficient amount, we inject a liquid
suspension into the lumen of appendix, fix and process the appendix and use
the resulting tissue sections as positive controls (works for pcp, gram,
spirochete, etc.).  However, we can't seem to get h.pylori to grow the same
way.  Is anyone else out there using this technique to make controls, and if
so have you had the same problems growing helico?  And would it be
acceptable to use camphy bacter instead (which I've heard is more hearty and
easy to culture)?-----------------------------------------

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