Hybridization results for the 120 studied DNAs used as a probe and the home-made macroarrays derived from the reference strain 26695 are presented in Additional file 1 (data based on the binary presence/absence analyses) and Figure 1 (data based on the multidimensional analysis of continuous values, see material and methods). Both presentations illustrate the distribution of each of the 254 genes (213 non-ubiquitous, and 41 ubiquitous, used for normalization) with respect to associated diseases. Each strain hybridization profile (Figure 1) is represented by a series of vertically aligned bar charts, whereas the horizontal lines represent each of the 254 genes. Each strain exhibited a unique profile. The most striking features were related to the distribution of the cagPAI genes: almost all H. pylori strains associated with metaplasia harbored a complete cagPAI, a result consistent with findings by Nilsson et al. [26]. However, a complete cagPAI was present in 70% of duodenal ulcer strains, and in 50% of chronic gastritis and of MALT lymphoma strains, confirming previously published findings for isolates collected in the West [27].