Figure 1.

The H. pylori-mediated hummingbird phenotype involves cell elongation and migration. While non-infected gastric epithelial AGS cells (mock) show a round morphology, infection with H. pylori wild type (wt) induced loss of cell-to-cell contacts, cell elongation and migration. The elongated cell morphology in response to H. pylori is dependent on the injection of CagA, since AGS cells infected with a cagA-deficient H. pylori mutant (ΔcagA) do not elongate.