We report on a new strategy for identifying highly specific aptamers against a predetermined epitope of a target. Termed ''ligand-guided selection'' (LIGS), this method uniquely exploits the selection step, the core of SELEX (Systematic Evolution Exponential enrichment). LIGS uses a naturally occurring stronger and highly specific bivalent binder, an antibody (Ab) interacting with its cognate antigen to outcompete specific aptamers from a partially enriched SELEX pool, as a strategy. We demonstrate the hypothesis of LIGS by utilizing an Ab binding to membrane-bound Immunoglobulin M (mIgM) to selectively elute aptamers that are specific for mIgM from a SELEX pool that is partially enriched toward mIgM expressing Ramos cells. The selected aptamers show specificity toward Ramos cells. We identified three aptamer candidates utilizing LIGS that could be outcompeted by mIgM Ab, demonstrating that LIGS can be successfully applied to select aptamers from a partially evolved cell-SELEX library, against predetermined receptor proteins using a cognate ligand. This proof-of-concept study introduces a new biochemical-screening platform that exploits the binding of a secondary stronger molecular entity to its target as a partition step, to identify highly specific artificial nucleic acid ligands.

We recently introduced a screening technology termed ligand-guided selection, (LIGS), to selectively identify target-specific aptamers from an evolved cell-SELEX library. Cell-SELEX utilizes a large combinatorial single-stranded oligonucleotide library and progressively selects DNA ligands against whole cells with variable DNA-binding affinities and specificities by repeated rounds of partition and amplification. LIGS exploits the partition step and introduces a secondary, pre-existing high-affinity monoclonal antibody (mAb) ligand to outcompete and elute specific aptamers towards the binding target of the antibody, not the cell. Here, using anti-CD3ε mAb against the cluster of differentiation 3 (CD3ε), as the guiding ligand against one of the domains of the T-Cell Receptor (TCR) complex expressed on Jurkat.E6 cells, we discovered three specific aptamers against TCR complex expressed on an immortalized line of human T lymphocyte cells. In sum, we demonstrate that specific aptamers can be identified utilizing an antibody against a single domain of a multidomain protein complex in their endogenous state with neither post- nor pre-SELEX protein manipulation.

23The objective of this study was to construct our recently developed aptamer-modified 24 targeted liposome nano-carrier (Apt-PEG-LPs) system to target primary cultured mouse