Selection and characterization of novel DNA aptamer against colorectal carcinoma Caco‐2 cells

Abstract

Aptamers are short, single-stranded nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) oligonucleotides that can be obtained by a technique called systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) in vitro. Due to superior properties such as small size, high binding affinity, and stability, they are considered to be feasible tools for diagnosis and treatment of disease. In the current study, we attempted to screen a high-affinity DNA aptamer to selectively target the colorectal carcinoma Caco-2 cells by using cell-based SELEX approach. After 14 consecutive rounds of selection, aptamer ApC1 was identified.Confocal microscopy results revealed that ApC1 could rapidly internalize into Caco-2 cells but not HEK 293 cells. Moreover, it showed high specificity to Caco-2 cells rather than other cell lines such as 293T, HeLa, MCF-7, HL-60, and NB4. Collectively, our results demonstrated that aptamer ApC1 has high specificity to colorectal carcinoma Caco-2 cells, which could be further applied for targeted therapy of colorectal cancer in future studies.Abbreviations: ssDNA, single-stranded DNA; SELEX, systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment; ApDC, aptamer drug conjugate. .

Recent Advances in Aptamer Discovery and Applications

“…Cell-SELEX is considered to have practical applications particularly in oncology, as this approach can select aptamers specific for the cancer cell targets. Employing Cell-SELEX, aptamer-based probes have been developed for a number of cancers, including cervical cancer [27,28], ovarian cancer [29,30], liver cancer [31], prostate cancer [32], breast cancer [33,34], glioma, [35], colorectal carcinoma [36], and lung carcinoma [37]. A number of cell-SELEX variants have been developed in the last years.…”

Re-endothelialization of Decellularized Scaffolds With Endothelial Progenitor Cell Capturing Aptamer: A New Strategy for Tissue-Engineered Heart Valve

“…Our results demonstrated that EPC-aptamer had a superior binding efficiency with EPCs compared with HFs and SMCs, which indicated that EPCaptamer was specific to EPCs. Yasen et al 34 tested binding affinity of the DNA aptamer to Caco-2 cells. The result showed that binding ratio was 44.2%, which was lower than our result.…”

“…Yasen et al . 34 tested binding affinity of the DNA aptamer to Caco-2 cells. The result showed that binding ratio was 44.2%, which was lower than our result.…”

Aptamer-Based Detection of Circulating Targets for Precision Medicine

“…This makes it possible to detect and analyze the tumor cells without known biomarkers. To date, numerous aptamers for diverse cell lines have been generated, such as those against lymphocytic leukemia, − myeloid leukemia, glioblastoma, ,, colon cancer, − liver cancer, − breast cancer, − lung cancer, − cervical cancer, , and ovarian cancer. , Third, the target molecules specifically bound by aptamers can be identified to discover new biomarkers for disease diagnosis and therapy. The cell surface markers identified by cell-SELEX and aptamer-based targeted proteomics have been summarized in other reviews. , Additionally, many cell-SELEX variants have been developed, including cell-internalization SELEX for selecting aptamers with cellular internalization capability, , 3D cell-SELEX, tissue-SELEX, − and even in vivo -SELEX for selecting robust aptamers in mimicked or natural complex physiological environments. , …”