title: Biophysical characterization of VEGF-aHt DNA aptamer interactions.
abstract: The binding of the well-studied DNA aptamer aHt (5'-ATACCAGTCTATTCAATTGGGCCCGTCCGTAT GGTGGGTGTGCTGGCCAG-3'), which has been demonstrated to recognize human vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF₁₆₅) to recombinant VEGF was characterized using fluorescence anisotropy, isothermal titration calorimetry and analytical ultracentrifugation. The negatively-charged DNA aptamer is selective for VEGF and does not recognize positively-charged hen egg lysozyme, or bovine serum albumin. In contrast to the VEGF association of the previously-described aV DNA aptamer, where the binding is enthalpically driven and sequence-specific, the binding of the aHt aptamer to VEGF is entropically-driven and not abolished by scrambling of the sequence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Indhu
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kanakaraj
authors.forename: Wen-Hsiang
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Mohan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Poongavanam
authors.forename: Sagar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dhamane
authors.forename: Loren J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Stagg
authors.forename: John E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Ladbury
authors.forename: Katerina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kourentzi
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Strych
authors.forename: Richard C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Willson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D052157:Aptamers, Nucleotide / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry*; D002417:Cattle; D002645:Chickens; D006801:Humans; D009113:Muramidase / Q000737:chemistry; D012710:Serum Albumin, Bovine / Q000737:chemistry; D042461:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D052157:Aptamers, Nucleotide; C467484:VEGFA protein, human; D042461:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A; D012710:Serum Albumin, Bovine; D009113:Muramidase