Zeitschrift für analytische und bioanalytische Techniken

Abstrakt

A Modified CE-SELEX Approach to Screen Aptamers for Small-Molecule Targets

Bin Wang

Coupling capillary electrophoresis with traditional systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (CE-SELEX) is an improved SELEX technique that emerged in the 2000s, and is mainly used to screen aptamers for large molecular targets such as proteins. For small molecular targets, CE-SELEX only allows partial isolation of target-bound aptamers from the unbound library due to non-observable mobility shifts induced by small-molecule targets. To address this issue, the author proposes a modified CE-SELEX approach that first splits a DNA/RNA library into two or three subgroups to reduce the size/molecular weight differences among sequences in the library. Each sub-library then interacts with the target molecule; the target-aptamer complexes are then collected using the procedure described by previous authors. The modified CE-SELEX method would allow the isolation of aptamers with high affinity and selectivity that are otherwise buried in the original unbound library peak, thus increasing the suitability of CE-SELEX for screening aptamers for small-molecule targets.