Smart Materials Based on DNA Aptamers: Taking Aptasensing to the Next Level

Abstract

“Smart” materials are an emerging category of multifunctional materials with physical or chemical properties that can be controllably altered in response to an external stimulus. By combining the standard properties of the advanced material with the unique ability to recognize and adapt in response to a change in their environment, these materials are finding applications in areas such as sensing and drug delivery. While the majority of these materials are responsive to physical or chemical changes, a particularly exciting area of research seeks to develop smart materials that are sensitive to specific molecular or biomolecular stimuli. These systems require the integration of a molecular recognition probe specific to the target molecule of interest. The ease of synthesis and labeling, low cost, and stability of DNA aptamers make them uniquely suited to effectively serve as molecular recognition probes in novel smart material systems. This review will highlight current work in the area of aptamer-based smart materials and prospects for their future applications.

Strategic Role of Nanotechnology in Fertilizers: Potential and Limitations

“…Polymer capsules built from nanoscale polyelectrolyte layers have already been reported (Li et al 2010) that can be used in triggered release systems for drug delivery (De Geest et al 2007) suggesting that similar systems for fertilizer release may not be far behind. The incorporation of molecular recognition agents such as antibodies (Jongeijk and Verheesen 2011), or aptamers (Mastronardi et al 2014;Sultan and DeRosa 2011;Zhang et al 2013) to aid in the specificity of the fertilizer nutrients, could be transformative in this regard.…”

Photonic crystals: emerging biosensors and their promise for point-of-care applications

“…150,151 Smart materials, such as hydrogels, polyionic liquids, graphene, and carbon nanotubes (CNTs), have been used for various applications, including biosensing. In particular, their incorporation into PC structures holds promise for rapid, sensitive, and reliable biosensing.…”

Enzymatic preparation of multimilligram amounts of pure single-stranded DNA samples for material and analytical sciences

“…Aptamers are single-stranded RNA or DNA molecules, obtained by in vitro selection [26,27] that bind to a wide variety of compounds, ranging from cations, small organic molecules, antibiotics and cofactors to peptides, through to whole viruses or cells [28]. Considerable effort has been directed into the development of efficient aptamer-based sensors for specific detection of analytes [3,29,30]. For the development of aptamers with stronger binding affinity and higher selectivity for an analyte, detailed structural information is required for a better understanding of the aptamer-analyte interaction.…”