Atrazine
is an herbicide that is widely used in crop production
at about 70 million pounds per year in the United States. Its widespread
use has led to contamination of groundwater and other aquatic systems.
It has resulted in many serious environmental and human health issues.
This study focuses on the identification and characterization of a
single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) aptamer that binds to atrazine. In this
study, a variation of the systematic evolution of ligands by exponential
enrichment (SELEX) process was used to identify an aptamer, which
binds to atrazine with high affinity and specificity. This SELEX focused
on inducing the aptamer’s ability to change conformation upon
binding to atrazine, and stringent negative target selections. After
12 rounds of in vitro selection, the ssDNA aptamer candidate R12.45
was chosen and truncated to obtain a 46-base sequence. The binding
affinity, specificity, and structural characteristics of this truncated
candidate was investigated by using isothermal titration calorimetry,
circular dichroism (CD) analysis, SYBR Green I (SG) fluorescence displacement
assays, and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) colorimetric assays. The truncated
R12.45 candidate aptamer bound to atrazine with high affinity (Kd = 3.7 nM) and displayed low cross-binding
activities on structurally related herbicides. In addition, CD analysis
data indicated a target induced structural stabilization. Finally,
SG assays and AuNPs assays showed nonconventional binding activities
between the truncated R12.45 aptamer candidate and atrazine, which
warrants future studies.
This pilot study suggests that a short educational intervention can impact prehospital providers' comfort with death notification. Future research will need to be conducted on prehospital provider skill retention and the impact this training has on family members.
The unique opportunity for aptamer uses in thrombotic events has sparked a considerable amount of research in the area. The short half-lives of unmodified aptamers in vivo remain one of the major challenges in therapeutic aptamers. Much of the incremental successful therapeutic aptamer stories were due to modifications in the aptamer bases. This mini-review briefly summarizes the successes and challenges in the clinical development of aptamers for thrombotic events, and highlights some of the most recent developments in using aptamers for anticoagulation monitoring.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.