Abstract
Inefficient delivery of antibiotics to the infection microenvironment, side effects of high-dose antibiotic use, as well as antimicrobial drug resistance are major global issues that remain to be solved. Efficient drug delivery systems and novel antimicrobial treatment strategies are urgently needed. Cell-specific aptamers are excellent molecules for specific targeting of microbial cells. Aptamers are single-stranded DNA or RNA molecules, which are able to selectively bind to their targets with high affinity. In this chapter, we first describe the methods for in vitro selection of aptamers against the whole pathogenic cell. Then we present an overview of current cell-specific aptamer-conjugated nanoparticles. In addition, we address two issues: nanoparticle-based antimicrobial gene delivery and modification of nanocarriers with aptamers.
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