Identification of the target protein of the metastatic colorectal cancer-specific aptamer W3 as a biomarker by aptamer-based target cells sorting and functional characterization.

Metastasis is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Hence, the discovery of more reliable metastasis-related biomarkers is crucial to improve the survival rate of cancer patients. W3 is an aptamer previously produced by the subtractive cell-SELEX using metastatic colorectal cancer cells as target cells and non-metastatic cells as negative cells.