Molecular Elucidation of Disease Biomarkers at the Interface of Chemistry and Biology

Abstract

Disease-related biomarkers are objectively measurable molecular signatures of physiological status that can serve as disease indicators or drug targets in clinical diagnosis and therapy, thus acting as a tool in support of personalized medicine. For example, the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) biomarker is now widely used to screen patients for prostate cancer. However, few such biomarkers are currently available, and the process of biomarker identification and validation is prolonged and complicated by inefficient methods of discovery and few reliable analytical platforms. Therefore, in this Perspective, we look at the advanced chemistry of aptamer molecules and their significant role as molecular probes in biomarker studies. As a special class of functional nucleic acids evolved from an iterative technology termed Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX), these single-stranded oligonucleotides can recognize their respective targets with selectivity and affinity comparable to those of protein antibodies. Because of their fast turnaround time and exceptional chemical properties, aptamer probes can serve as novel molecular tools for biomarker investigations, particularly in assisting identification of new disease-related biomarkers. More importantly, aptamers are able to recognize biomarkers from complex biological environments such as blood serum and cell surfaces, which can provide direct evidence for further clinical applications. This Perspective highlights several major advancements of aptamer-based biomarker discovery strategies and their potential contribution to the practice of precision medicine.

mHealth-Based Microfluidic Lab-on-a-Chip for International Health Security

“…In [21][22][23][24]. These systems were formerly designed for improving chemical separation techniques, particularly capillary electrophoresis, and were later applied in experiments with biological materials [25], DNA and RNA, cells and bacteria, proteins, etc., motivated by the potential market for biomedical research [26]. Microfluidic-based biosensors, primarily dedicated to the detection of biomolecules such as proteins, enzymes, peptides, and DNA, are proposed in the biomedical field as tools to monitor cell behavior on a miniaturized scale, with high sensitivity and resolution and low costs [27].…”

Bioapplications of Cell-SELEX-Generated Aptamers in Cancer Diagnostics, Therapeutics, Theranostics and Biomarker Discovery: A Comprehensive Review

“…The results of LC-MS and SDS-PAGE also demonstrated the target protein to be B-cell receptor IGHM [ 94 ]. Utilizing this covalent linkage process, the capture, enrichment and aptamer-based isolation of target protein receptors have been improved ( Figure 14 ) [ 95 ].…”

Selection and preliminary application of a single stranded DNA aptamer targeting colorectal cancer serum

“…Moreover, extraction of tumor markers from the serum of the colorectal cancer patients is relatively complicated, leading to few tumor markers available for clinical diagnosis and to the reduction in recognition efficiency of colorectal cancer. 26 Therefore, there is still a troublesome issue to develop some simple diagnosis tools with high accuracy to recognize colorectal cancer based on the serum of the colorectal cancer patients. [27][28][29] In this study, we have developed an efficient strategy to screen a highly specic nucleic acid aptamer aiming to recognize colorectal cancer serum as diagnosis tools.…”