Helicobacter pylori specifically adhere to host cells through a number of putative receptors and ligands, mainly based on carbohydrate-protein interactions. Polysaccharide fractions isolated from the leaves of Artemisia capillaris showed different inhibitory activities against H. pylori adhesion by using hemagglutination assay. Among these fractions, an acidic polysaccharide fraction FlA showed highly effective inhibitory activity, and its minimum inhibition concentration was 0.63 mg/ml. The inhibition results by the hemagglutination assay were consistent with those obtained by the enzymelinked glycosorbent assay, which was developed by the conjugation of horseradish peroxidase with fetuin, a sialic acid-containing glycoprotein which was specific to H. pylori adhesion. FlA contained the highest carbohydrate content among polysaccharide fractions, and no protein was detectable when further purified by gel filtration FPLC. Sugar composition analysis using GC revealed the highest amount of galacturonic acid among sugars, which suggests that FlA contains essentially acidic polysaccharides. Our data suggest that acidic polysaccharides may play an important role in the inhibition of H. pylori adhesion to host cells.