Nucleic acid aptamers: an emerging frontier in cancer therapy

Abstract

The last two decades have witnessed the development and application of nucleic acid aptamers in a variety of fields, including target analysis, disease therapy, and molecular and cellular engineering. The efficient and widely applicable aptamer selection, reproducible chemical synthesis and modification, generally impressive target binding selectivity and affinity, relatively rapid tissue penetration, low immunogenicity, and rapid systemic clearance make aptamers ideal recognition elements for use as therapeutics or for in vivo delivery of therapeutics. In this feature article, we discuss the development and biomedical application of nucleic acid aptamers, with emphasis on cancer cell aptamer isolation, targeted cancer therapy, oncology biomarker identification and drug discovery.

Screening and Characterization of a Novel RNA Aptamer That Specifically Binds to Human Prostatic Acid Phosphatase and Human Prostate Cancer Cells

“…They can also undergo reversible denaturation, making them a very versatile tool for drug loading and antidote applications (Bompiani et al, 2012). Moreover, aptamers elicit little to no immunogenicity in therapeutic applications (Eyetech Study Group, 2002;Foy et al, 2007;Zhu et al, 2012). Furthermore, many functional groups and/or nucleotide extensions can be introduced onto aptamers.…”

RAID3 - An interleukin-6 receptor-binding aptamer with post-selective modification-resistant affinity

“…Like antibodies, aptamers bind their target molecule with high affinity and specificity. However, unlike their protein counterparts, they are independent of cellular systems for selection and production, show little to non-immunogenicity, 17,18 and have lower production costs and batch-to-batch variation. Today, aptamers are available for a huge variety of targets, such as small molecules, 19 proteins, 20 viruses, 21 and even whole cells.…”

Nuclease-resistant synthetic drug-DNA adducts: programmable drug-DNA conjugation for targeted anticancer drug delivery

“…24 Recently, our group developed cellSystematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential enrichment to select aptamers for living cells of various cancers. [25][26][27][28] DNA aptamers possess many remarkable features, such as facile screening against various targets, automated synthesis and modification, strong binding affinity and low cytotoxicity or immunogenicity. 24 Because of the sequence programmability, DNA has been engineered into various drug nanocarriers.…”