Potential utility of nano-based treatment approaches to address the risk of Helicobacter pylori

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) has occupied a significant place among infectious pathogens and it has been documented as a leading challenge due to its higher resistance to the commonly used drugs, higher adaptability, and lower targeting specificity of the available drugs.

Areas Covered

New treatment strategies are urgently needed in order to improve the current advancement in modern medicine. Nanocarriers have gained an advantage of drug encapsulation and high retention time in the stomach with a prolonged drug release rate at the targeted site. This article aims to highlight the recent advances in nanotechnology with special emphasis on metallic, polymeric, lipid, membrane coated, and target-specific nanoparticles (NPs), as well as, natural products for treating H. pylori infection. We discussed a comprehensive approach to understand H. pylori infection and elicits to rethink about the increasing threat posed by H. pylori and its treatment strategies.

Expert Opinion

To address these issues, nanotechnology has got huge potential to combat H. pylori infection and has made great progress in the field of biomedicine. Moreover, combinatory studies of natural products and probiotics in conjugation with NPs have proven efficiency against H. pylori infection, with an advantage of lower cytotoxicity, minimal side effects, and stronger antibacterial potential.

KEYWORDS:

• Helicobacter pylori
• nanoparticles
• gastroenterology
• antibiotic resistance
• natural products

Article highlights

• H. pylori is responsible for causing gastrointestinal (GIT) diseases due to its special quality to colonize mucosal layer and evade host defense system.

• In vitro and in vivo treatments using NPs, natural products, and probiotics could eradicate and/or overcome the resistance rate of H. pylori.

The combination of NPs with natural products and probiotics proved to be successful in the eradication of H. pylori.

List of abbreviations

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), proton pump inhibitor (PPI), Nanoparticles (NPs), extra polymeric substances (EPS), extracellular DNA (eDNA), outer membrane proteins (OMP), outer membrane vesicles (OMVs), World Health Organization (WHO), Nanostructured lipid nanocarriers (NLCs), zinc oxide (ZnO), localized surface resonance (LSPR), gastric adenocarcinoma (AGS), quorum sensing (QS), polyethyleneimine (PEI), polymer nanoparticle (PNP), carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS), stearic acid (SA), rhamnolipids chitosan nanoparticles (RL-CS-NPs), linoleic acid (CH_LA), hesperidin (Hesp), clarithromycin (CLR), reactive oxygen species (ROS), amoxicillin (AMO), gastric epithelial cells (AGS), magnetic nanoparticle (Fe₃O₄).

Acknowledgments

We offer immense gratitude to all the co-authors for their help in designing and writing this review article. We are also thankful to the excellent doctoral scholarship award by the “Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC)” and a full scholarship from the ministry of Higher Education of Arab Republic of Egypt to “Mohammed Sharaf.”

Declaration of interests

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Author contributions

1. Sohaib Khan has substantially contributed to the conception, design, and writing of the article.

2. Mohamed Sharaf has contributed to data collection.

3. Ishfaq Ahmed has contributed to article submission, analysis, and interpretation.

4. Tehsin Ullah Khan, Samah Shabana Muhammad Arif, Syed Shabi Ul Hassan Kazmi have contributed to the critical revision of the article.

5. Chenguang Liu has contributed to the supervision and final approval of the article to be published.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.