Aptamer-based Technologies for Biomarker Discovery
Aptamer-based Technologies for Biomarker Discovery
Aida Gholoobi,1,*
1. Medical Genetics Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.
Introduction: Exploration and determination of human disease biomarkers lead to early detection, accurate therapy, prognosis, and response to treatment.
Methods: Efficient and sensitive methods revealing clinical biomarkers are limited due to various technical problems facing the current technologies.
Results: Aptamers are single-stranded oligonucleotides that can selectively and specifically bind to a wide range of targets with high affinity. Besides, compared to their counterparts, aptamers have advantages, including ease of synthesis, flexible chemical modification, stability in various conditions, and low immunogenicity. Recently, aptamer-based strategies, such as Cell-SELEX and SOMAScan technology, have revolutionized biomarker discovery. Through Cell-SELEX, scientists can use various nucleic acid aptamers to identify cell surface biomarkers of multiple cells. With SOMAScan technology, thousands of proteins of diverse biological specimens can be analyzed to become a multiplexed proteomics platform for biomarker discovery.
Conclusion: A brief review will be presented to introduce technologies based on aptamers in the field of biomarker discovery.