Progress in Aptamer Research and Future Applications

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Aptamers are short, single-stranded DNA, RNA or synthetic XNA molecules that bind to target molecules with high specificity and affinity. These intrinsically structured RNA or DNA oligonucleotides are not only substitutes for antibodies, but also show great potential for applications in diagnostics, specific drug delivery, and treatment of certain diseases. While the process of aptamer identification and its core functional mechanism known as systematic evolution of exponentially enriched ligands (SELEX), SELEX involves a number of single processes, each contributing to the success or failure of aptamer generation. Today, aptamers are widely used to facilitate basic research discoveries and clinical diagnostics. In addition, aptamers play a promising role as clinical diagnostic and therapeutic agents. This review provides recent advances in this rapidly growing field of research, with special emphasis on aptamer generation and screening, small molecule aptamers, the development of aptamer applications, and applications in clinical medicine. And it also discusses the problems that still exist today with aptamers.

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

Browse all related research

Filter the research library by this study's title keywords, author, or publication year.