Helicobacter pylori is an organism widespread in humans and sometimes responsible for serious illnesses. It has been hypothesized the existence of animal reservoirs, and that the infection route by H. pylori involves multiple pathways including food-borne transmission as the microorganism has been detected from sheep, goat and cow milk. This work reports the preliminary results of a survey conducted in order to investigate the presence of H. pylori in gastric mucosa of sheep slaughtered in

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... a region (Italy) employing a Nested Polymerase Chain Reaction (Nested-PCR) assay for the detection of the phosphoglucosamine mutase gene (glmM), as screening method followed by conventional bacteriological isolation. Out of the 50 gastric mucosa samples examined, 3 (6%) resulted positive for the presence of glmM gene, but at this time no strains were isolated. The results deserve further investigations to asses the role of ruminants as possible reservoirs of H. pylori.