Aptamers Increase Biocompatibility and Reduce the Toxicity of Magnetic Nanoparticles Used in Biomedicine.

Aptamer-based approaches are very promising tools in nanomedicine. These small single-stranded DNA or RNA molecules are often used for the effective delivery and increasing biocompatibility of various therapeutic agents. Recently, magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have begun to be successfully applied in various fields of biomedicine.

Aptamer-Conjugated Superparamagnetic Ferroarabinogalactan Nanoparticles for Targeted Magnetodynamic Therapy of Cancer.

Nanotechnologies involving physical methods of tumor destruction using functional oligonucleotides are promising for targeted cancer therapy. Our study presents magnetodynamic therapy for selective elimination of tumor cells in vivo using DNA aptamer-functionalized magnetic nanoparticles exposed to a low frequency alternating magnetic field. We developed an enhanced targeting approach of cancer cells with aptamers and arabinogalactan.

Development of DNA Aptamers to Native EpCAM for Isolation of Lung Circulating Tumor Cells from Human Blood.

We selected DNA aptamers to the epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) expressed on primary lung cancer cells isolated from the tumors of patients with non-small cell lung cancer using competitive displacement of aptamers from EpCAM by a corresponding antibody. The resulting aptamers clones showed good nanomolar affinity to EpCAM-positive lung cancer cells. Confocal microscopy imaging and spectral profiling of lung cancer tissues confirmed the same protein target for the aptamers and anti-EpCAM antibodies.

Electrochemical aptasensor for lung cancer-related protein detection in crude blood plasma samples.

The development of an aptamer-based electrochemical sensor for lung cancer detection is presented in this work. A highly specific DNA-aptamer, LC-18, selected to postoperative lung cancer tissues was immobilized onto a gold microelectrode and electrochemical measurements were performed in a solution containing the redox marker ferrocyanide/ferricyanide. The aptamer protein targets were harvested from blood plasma of lung cancer patients by using streptavidin paramagnetic beads and square wave voltammetry of the samples was performed at various concentrations.