Nucleic Acid Aptamers for Molecular Diagnostics and Therapeutics: Advances and Perspectives

Li, Long; Xu, Shujuan; He, Yan; Li, Xiaowei; Yazd, Hoda Safari; Huang, T. C.; Cui, Cheng; Jiang, Jian‐Hui; Tan, Weihong

doi:10.1002/anie.202003563

Cited by 289 publications

(169 citation statements)

References 109 publications

(14 reference statements)

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“…As an alternative to the enzyme and to improve selectivity, aptamers are used as biorecognition elements in sensors. Aptamers are short DNA or RNA strands that are selected using a technique known as SELEX (systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment) have been widely employed in many biosensors for the detection of biomarkers, pathogens, and diagnosis of serious diseases [70][71][72][73]. To improve the specificity of pesticide sensors, pesticide-specific aptamer coupled with CQDs have been reported as a probe for the detection of acetamiprid [74].…”

Section: Review Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon quantum dots for the detection of antibiotics and pesticides

Chu¹,

Unnikrishnan²,

Anand³

et al. 2020

Journal of Food and Drug Analysis

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Section: Review Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon quantum dots for the detection of antibiotics and pesticides

Chu¹,

Unnikrishnan²,

Anand³

et al. 2020

Journal of Food and Drug Analysis

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“…Nowadays, several other analytical approaches, such as capillary electrophoresis [ 15 ], particle display technology [ 16 ], and microfluidic chips [ 17 ], have been introduced along with the SELEX process, to improve the efficiency of the selection procedure. Moreover, it has become possible to add multiple functional moieties onto the aptamers through automated modular synthesis, computational technologies, and phosphoramidite chemistry [ 18 ]. For example, Meng Liu et al (2019) reported the selection of two high affinity DNA aptamers from the circular libraries [ 19 ], against the glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) of Clostridium difficile .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Current Perspectives on Aptamers as Diagnostic Tools and Therapeutic Agents

2020

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Aptamers are synthetic single-stranded DNA or RNA sequences selected from combinatorial oligonucleotide libraries through the well-known in vitro selection and iteration process, SELEX. The last three decades have witnessed a sudden boom in aptamer research, owing to their unique characteristics, like high specificity and binding affinity, low immunogenicity and toxicity, and ease in synthesis with negligible batch-to-batch variation. Aptamers can specifically bind to the targets ranging from small molecules to complex structures, making them suitable for a myriad of diagnostic and therapeutic applications. In analytical scenarios, aptamers are used as molecular probes instead of antibodies. They have the potential in the detection of biomarkers, microorganisms, viral agents, environmental pollutants, or pathogens. For therapeutic purposes, aptamers can be further engineered with chemical stabilization and modification techniques, thus expanding their serum half-life and shelf life. A vast number of antagonistic aptamers or aptamer-based conjugates have been discovered so far through the in vitro selection procedure. However, the aptamers face several challenges for its successful clinical translation, and only particular aptamers have reached the marketplace so far. Aptamer research is still in a growing stage, and a deeper understanding of nucleic acid chemistry, target interaction, tissue distribution, and pharmacokinetics is required. In this review, we discussed aptamers in the current diagnostics and theranostics applications, while addressing the challenges associated with them. The report also sheds light on the implementation of aptamer conjugates for diagnostic purposes and, finally, the therapeutic aptamers under clinical investigation, challenges therein, and their future directions.

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“…Aptamers have gained considerable attention as artificial bioreceptors for bioanalytical and therapeutic applications, as they offer several advantages relative to antibodies, such as high chemical stability, low batch-to-batch variation, and economical synthesis ( 3 , 4 ). Due to these and other advantageous properties, there has been increasing interest in the use of aptamers as probes for detecting small molecules relevant for biomedical research applications, medical diagnostics, therapeutic drug monitoring and drug testing ( 3 , 5 ), as well as the in-depth study of biological systems such as neurotransmission ( 6 ) and gene expression ( 7 ). For example, aptamers were recently employed for real-time monitoring of the pharmacokinetics of small-molecule drugs in the circulation of live animals ( 8 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Label-free profiling of DNA aptamer-small molecule binding using T5 exonuclease

Alkhamis

Yang

Farhana

et al. 2020

Nucleic Acids Research

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In vitro aptamer isolation methods can yield hundreds of potential candidates, but selecting the optimal aptamer for a given application is challenging and laborious. Existing aptamer characterization methods either entail low-throughput analysis with sophisticated instrumentation, or offer the potential for higher throughput at the cost of providing a relatively increased risk of false-positive or -negative results. Here, we describe a novel method for accurately and sensitively evaluating the binding between DNA aptamers and small-molecule ligands in a high-throughput format without any aptamer engineering or labeling requirements. This approach is based on our new finding that ligand binding inhibits aptamer digestion by T5 exonuclease, where the extent of this inhibition correlates closely with the strength of aptamer-ligand binding. Our assay enables accurate and efficient screening of the ligand-binding profiles of individual aptamers, as well as the identification of the best target binders from a batch of aptamer candidates, independent of the ligands in question or the aptamer sequence and structure. We demonstrate the general applicability of this assay with a total of 106 aptamer-ligand pairs and validate these results with a gold-standard method. We expect that our assay can be readily expanded to characterize small-molecule-binding aptamers in an automated, high-throughput fashion.

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Nucleic Acid Aptamers for Molecular Diagnostics and Therapeutics: Advances and Perspectives

Cited by 289 publications

References 109 publications

Carbon quantum dots for the detection of antibiotics and pesticides

Carbon quantum dots for the detection of antibiotics and pesticides

Current Perspectives on Aptamers as Diagnostic Tools and Therapeutic Agents

Label-free profiling of DNA aptamer-small molecule binding using T5 exonuclease

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