. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2009 Aug 1.

Published in final edited form as: Trends Mol Med. 2008 Jul 6;14(8):351–360. doi: 10.1016/j.molmed.2008.06.002

Table 1.

Examples of pathogens that bind to sialic acids on human cell surfaces

Pathogen	Binding protein	Known target sialylated sequence
Human Influenza A	Hemagglutinin	Siaα2-6Gal(NAc)
Avian Influenza A	Hemagglutinin	Siaα2-3Galβ1-
Human Influenza C	Hemagglutinin-esterase	9-O-Ac-Siaα2-
Vibrio cholerae	Toxin	Galβ1-3GalNAcβ1,4(Siaα2-3)Lac-Cer
Plasmodium falciparum	EBA-175	Siaα2-3Galβ1-3(Siaα2-6)GalNAc-O-
Clostridium botulinum	Toxin	Polysialogangliosides
Helicobacter pylori	SabA	Siaα2-3Gal on gangliosides