Sialic acids are a class of alpha-keto acid sugars with a nine-carbon backbone. The term "sialic acid" () was first introduced by Swedish biochemist Gunnar Blix in 1952. The most common member of this group is N-acetylneuraminic acid (Neu5Ac or NANA) found in animals and some prokaryotes.
Sialic acids are found widely distributed in animal tissues and related forms are found to a lesser extent in other organisms like in some micro-algae, bacteria and archaea. Sialic acids are commonly part of glycoproteins, glycolipids or gangliosides, where they decorate the end of sugar chains at the surface of cells or soluble proteins. However, sialic acids have been also observed in Drosophila embryos and other insects. Generally, plants seem not to contain or display sialic acids.
In humans the brain has the highest sialic acid content, where these acids play an important role in neural transmission and ganglioside structure in synaptogenesis. More than 50 kinds of sialic acid are known, all of which can be obtained from a molecule of neuraminic acid by substituting its amino group or one of its hydroxyl groups. In general, the amino group bears either an acetyl or a glycolyl group, but other modifications have been described. These modifications along with linkages have shown to be tissue specific and developmentally regulated expressions, so some of them are only found on certain types of glycoconjugates in specific cells. The hydroxyl substituents may vary considerably; acetyl, lactyl, methyl, sulfate, and phosphate groups have been found.