Aptamers: Powerful Molecular Tools for Therapeutics and Diagnostics

Abstract

In 1990, within months of each other, the laboratories of G.F. Joyce (La Jolla, USA) (Robertson and Joyce 1990), J.W. Szostak (Boston, USA) (Ellington and Szostak 1990) and L. Gold (Bolder, USA) (Tuerk and Gold 1990) independently reported on the development of an in vitro selection and amplification technique, which has allowed the discovery of specific nucleic acid sequences that bind a wide array of non-nucleic acid targets with high affinity and specificity. The technique by which these oligonucleotide ligands are obtained was coined as SELEX – systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment – and the resulting oligonucleotides are referred to as aptamers, derived from the Latin aptus, meaning, ‘to fit’ (Jayasena 1999). The last decade has seen the selection of an extensive range of aptamers with abilities to bind to small molecules, peptides, proteins, cells, etc. with selectivity, specificity and affinity equal and often superior to those of antibodies (Hesselberth et al. 2000; Haller and Sarnow 1997; Gebhardt et al. 2000;Wilson et al. 2001; Kawakami et al. 2000). Aptamers possess the ability to discriminate targets on the basis of subtle structural differences such