Aptamers are widely used in numerous biochemical, bioanalytical, and biological studies. Most aptamers are developed through an in vitro selection process called SELEX against either purified targets or living cells expressing targets of interest. We report here an in vivo SELEX in mice using a PEGylated RNA library for the identification of a 2'-F RNA aptamer (RA16) that specifically binds to ...

Lipocalin-2 (Lcn2) is a biomarker for many inflammatory-based diseases, including acute kidney injury, cardiovascular stress, diabetes, and various cancers. Inflammatory transitions occur rapidly in kidney and cardiovascular disease, for which an in-line monitor could be beneficial. Microcantilever devices with aptamers as recognition elements can be effective and rapidly responsive sensors. He...

Aptamers have recently emerged as an excellent alternative to antibodies because of their inherent stability and ease of modification. In this paper, we describe the development of an aptamer-based surface for capture of cells expressing CD4 antigen. The glass or silicon surfaces were modified with amine-terminated silanes and then modified with thiolated RNA aptamer against CD4. Modification o...

HIV-1 aspartyl protease (PR) plays a key role in virion morphogenesis, underscoring the effectiveness of protease inhibitors (PI). Despite their utility, side effects and drug-resistance remains a problem. We report the development of RNA aptamers as inhibitors of HIV-1 PR for potential use in anti-HIV gene therapy. Employing Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX), we...

Infection with Shiga toxin- (Stx-) producing E. coli causes life threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a leading cause of acute renal failure in children. Of the two antigenically distinct toxins, Stx1 and Stx2, Stx2 is more firmly linked with the development of HUS. In the present study, selective evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) was used in an attempt to identify ...

Display technologies are procedures used for isolating target-recognizing peptides without using immunized animals. In this study, we describe a new display method, named Hishot display, that uses Escherichia coli and an expression plasmid to isolate target-recognizing peptides. This display method is based on the formation, in bacteria, of complexes between a polyhistidine (His)-tagged peptide...

To date, single-molecule RNA science has been developed almost exclusively around the effect of metal ions as folding promoters and stabilizers of the RNA structure. Here, we introduce a novel strategy that combines single-molecule Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) and chemical denaturation to observe and manipulate RNA dynamics. We demonstrate that the competing interplay between metal ...

Aptamers binding proteins or small molecules have been shown to be versatile and powerful building blocks for the construction of artificial genetic switches. In this study, we present a novel aptamer-based construct regulating the Tet Off system in a tetracycline-independent manner thus achieving control of transgene expression. For this purpose, a TetR protein-inhibiting aptamer was engineere...

Inhibitors of AMPA-type glutamate ion channels are useful as biochemical probes for structure-function studies and as drug candidates for a number of neurological disorders and diseases. Here we describe the identification of an RNA inhibitor or aptamer by an in vitro evolution approach and a characterization of its mechanism of inhibition on the sites of interaction by equilibrium binding and ...

Aptamers are single-stranded structured oligonucleotides (DNA or RNA) that can bind to a wide range of targets ("apatopes") with high affinity and specificity. These nucleic acid ligands, generated from pools of random-sequence by an in vitro selection process referred to as systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX), have now been identified as excellent tools for chemic...