title: In vitro evolution of chemically-modified nucleic acid aptamers: Pros and cons, and comprehensive selection strategies.
abstract: Nucleic acid aptamers are single-stranded DNA or RNA oligonucleotide sequences that bind to a specific target molecule with high affinity and specificity through their ability to adopt 3-dimensional structure in solution. Aptamers have huge potential as targeted therapeutics, diagnostics, delivery agents and as biosensors. However, aptamers composed of natural nucleotide monomers are quickly degraded in vivo and show poor pharmacodynamic properties. To overcome this, chemically-modified nucleic acid aptamers are developed by incorporating modified nucleotides after or during the selection process by Systematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential enrichment (SELEX). This review will discuss the development of chemically-modified aptamers and provide the pros and cons, and new insights on in vitro aptamer selection strategies by using chemically-modified nucleic acid libraries.
authors.affiliation: a Western Australian Neuroscience Research Institute , Perth , Australia.
authors.forename: Farhana
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lipi
authors.affiliation: a Western Australian Neuroscience Research Institute , Perth , Australia.|b Centre for Comparative Genomics, Murdoch University , Perth , Australia.
authors.forename: Suxiang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: a Western Australian Neuroscience Research Institute , Perth , Australia.|b Centre for Comparative Genomics, Murdoch University , Perth , Australia.
authors.forename: Madhuri
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chakravarthy
authors.affiliation: a Western Australian Neuroscience Research Institute , Perth , Australia.
authors.forename: Shilpa
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rakesh
authors.affiliation: a Western Australian Neuroscience Research Institute , Perth , Australia.|b Centre for Comparative Genomics, Murdoch University , Perth , Australia.
authors.forename: Rakesh N
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Veedu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D052157:Aptamers, Nucleotide / Q000138:chemical synthesis* / Q000737:chemistry / Q000493:pharmacokinetics*; D006801:Humans; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D052156:SELEX Aptamer Technique; D054852:Small Molecule Libraries / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000493:pharmacokinetics
chemical_list: D052157:Aptamers, Nucleotide; D054852:Small Molecule Libraries
keywords: Aptamers; SELEX; chemical antibodies; chemically-modified aptamers; in vitro selection; modified nucleotides; nucleic acid ligands