title: Aptasensors for biosecurity applications.
abstract: Nucleic acid (aptasensors) have found steadily increased utility and application over the past decade. In particular, aptamers have been touted as a valuable complement to and, in some cases, replacement for antibodies owing to their structural and functional robustness as well as their ease in generation and synthesis. They are thus attractive for biosecurity applications (e.g. pathogen detection) and are especially well suited because their in vitro generation process does not require infection of any host systems. Herein we provide a brief overview of the aptamers generated against pathogens and toxins over the past few years. In addition, a few recently described detection platforms using aptamers and potentially suitable applications for biosecurity will be discussed.
authors.affiliation: BioSecurity and NanoSciences Laboratory, Chemistry, Materials & Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94551, USA.
authors.forename: Nicholas O
authors.initials: NO
authors.lastname: Fischer
authors.forename: Theodore M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Tarasow
authors.forename: Jeffrey B-H
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Tok
mesh_terms: D052157:Aptamers, Nucleotide / Q000737:chemistry*; D001483:Base Sequence; D015374:Biosensing Techniques; D008024:Ligands; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D012637:Security Measures
chemical_list: D052157:Aptamers, Nucleotide; D008024:Ligands