Spotlight Commentary: Medicines use during pregnancy and harmful effects on offspring

Recent Progress in Aptamer Discoveries and Modifications for Therapeutic Applications

“…Most recently, a great many important applied paradigms have been demonstrated in the field of therapeutic research . First, similar to monoclonal antibodies, aptamers act as inhibitors that can interfere with the normal function of a target protein and be applied as therapeutic agents directly after some chemical modifications in order to improve the ability to resist nuclease degradation and prolong the action time (as discussed in detail below) . Second, some aptamers are internalized after binding to receptors on the cell surface, which makes them valuable as targeting agents for microRNAs, small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), conventional small-molecule drugs (ApDCs), and beyond. − Lastly, attributed to their chemical synthesis properties, aptamers are easy to couple with liposomes and other carriers to form a smart delivery system, so that small molecules, peptides, nucleic acids, and even the CRISPR/Cas9 system can achieve targeted delivery …”

“…3 First, similar to monoclonal antibodies, aptamers act as inhibitors that can interfere with the normal function of a target protein and be applied as therapeutic agents directly after some chemical modifications in order to improve the ability to resist nuclease degradation and prolong the action time (as discussed in detail below). 10 Second, some aptamers are internalized after binding to receptors on the cell surface, which makes them valuable as targeting agents for microRNAs, small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), conventional small-molecule drugs Starting with a randomized library incubated with the target (1), bound species are partitioned and stringently washed (2), followed by elution of the desired species. For RNA selections, recovered material must be reverse transcribed, followed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification (3) and transcription back into RNA to generate the library for the next round.…”

The Modification Strategies for Enhancing the Metabolic Stabilities and Pharmacokinetics of Aptamer Drug Candidates

“…As a result, aptamers have a high affinity and selectivity for a wide range of target molecules, including peptides, proteins, tiny compounds, and even living cells. Because inhibitory aptamers that affect the activity of pathogenic target proteins may be utilized as therapeutic agents directly, they are a viable alternative to therapeutic antibodies or peptide ligands [4]. Aptamers have several benefits over antibodies, including ease of synthesis, reduced time and cost, lesser immunogenicity, greater stability, and superior refold ability.…”

Strategies for developing long-lasting therapeutic nucleic acid aptamer targeting circulating protein: The present and the future

“…Firstly, various chemical modifications can be applied to nucleic acid aptamer’s backbone to avoid enzymatic degradation. Similar to monoclonal antibodies, after some essential chemical modifications to improve the resistance to the nuclease degradation and prolong the biological half-life, inhibitory aptamers that can disrupt the function of pathological target proteins can be used directly as therapeutic agents ( Wei and Cohen, 2019 ). Secondly, several low molecular weight coupling agents (LMWCAs) can be chemically conjugated to the nucleic acid aptamer structure to achieve the long-lasting demand.…”