Sialic acid-based strategies for the prevention and treatment of Helicobacter pylori infection: Emerging trends in food industry.

Approximately 50% of the world population is infected with Helicobacter pylori. Antibiotics are widely used for H. pylori infection treatment but there are drawbacks, e.g., the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Sialic acids are a family of acylated derivatives of a nine-carbon carboxylated monosaccharide. Because sialic acid of the host cells is vital to H. pylori pathogenesis, sialic acid-guided therapies have been proposed for the prevention and treatment of H. pylori infection, including anti-adhesive therapy and site-specific delivery. This review aims to shed light on the prospects of sialic acid-based strategies in the food industry for developing functional foods with potent anti-H. pylori activity. In this work, progress on the identification of sialic acid-containing components as anti-adhesive agents against H. pylori is reviewed. The current applications of sialic acid-based delivery systems in eradicating H. pylori are discussed, including microspheres, beads, hydrogels, and nanoparticles. The challenges and future perspectives of sialic acid-guided strategies and the possibility of their applications in food industry are highlighted. Antibiotic resistance is still a major challenge and the sialic acid-based technologies have tremendous potential to be utilized to develop functional foods that hold promise to be a future trend for preventing or treating H. pylori infection.