Effects of Mitral Valve Surgery on Ventricular Arrhythmia in Mitral Valve Prolapse Patients: Five-Year Eollow-up.

Aim      To evaluate the effect of mitral valve (MV) repair and replacement on the incidence of ventricular arrhythmias (VA) and to identify risk factors for the persistence of VA in patients with MV prolapse and severe mitral regurgitation (MR) during a mid-term follow-up.Material and methods  A single-site observational, prospective study successively enrolled 30 patients (mean age, 55.2±9.

Alpha-Deoxyguanosine to Reshape the Alpha-Thrombin Binding Aptamer.

Modification of DNA aptamers is aimed at increasing their thermodynamic stability, and improving affinity and resistance to biodegradation. G-quadruplex DNA aptamers are a family of affinity ligands that form non-canonical DNA assemblies based on a G-tetrads stack. Modification of the quadruplex core is challenging since it can cause complete loss of affinity of the aptamer.

The Regioselective Conjugation of the 15-nt Thrombin Aptamer with an Optimized Tripeptide Sequence Greatly Increases the Anticoagulant Activity of the Aptamer.

Currently, oligonucleotide therapy has emerged as a new paradigm in the treatment of human diseases. In many cases, however, therapeutic oligonucleotides cannot be used directly without modification. Chemical modification or the conjugation of therapeutic oligonucleotides is required to increase their stability or specificity, improve their affinity or inhibitory characteristics, and address delivery issues.

Anticoagulant Oligonucleotide-Peptide Conjugates: Identification of Thrombin Aptamer Conjugates with Improved Characteristics.

Oligonucleotide-peptide conjugates (OPCs) are a promising class of biologically active compounds with proven potential for improving nucleic acid therapeutics. OPCs are commonly recognized as an efficient instrument to enhance the cellular delivery of therapeutic nucleic acids. In addition to this application field, OPCs have an as yet unexplored potential for the post-SELEX optimization of DNA aptamers.

Recognition Interface of the Thrombin Binding Aptamer Requires Antiparallel Topology of the Quadruplex Core.

Recent advances in G-quadruplex (GQ) studies have provided evidence for their important role in key biological processes (replication, transcription, genome stability, and epigenetics). These findings imply highly specific interactions between GQ structures and cellular proteins. The details of the interaction between GQs and cellular proteins remain unknown.