The Application of Aptasensors for the Aging Diseases Diagnosis

Background: Aging-associated diseases are disorders typically seen with increasing frequency in the elderly people. Aging diseases include cardiovascular disease, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Aptamers are short single-stranded DNA or RNA oligonucleotide molecules that can bind to a specific disease biomarker with high precision and strong adhesion. They can be generated using the systemic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment or modern biological computational tools. Objective: This review aims to cover the application and prospect of various aptamers-based sensors for the different aging diseases immunodiagnostics. Methods: A literature review of the field of aptasenors and their application for the aging diseases diagnosis was conducted. The mechanisms of aptsensors for the aging disease were illustrated here with examples. Results: In this review, we summarized the advances of the aptasensors for the cardiovascular disease, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases diagnosis. The success of the aptasensors in the aging disease detection was also demonstrated here. Compared to the conventional antibodies, oligonucleotide aptamers had unique merits such as non-immunogenicity, thermal stability, and low cost. Besides, aptamers could be easily modified with reporter molecules, showing the promising future as an alternative to antibodies in many biological applications. In addition, we discussed that the challenges the aptasensors are facing, such as interfere from the complex environments of biological samples and high nuclease-sensitivity of unmodified aptamers. Conclusion: This paper reveals the potential application of aptasensors as a rapid point-of-care technology for the early aging-associated disease immunodiagnostics. Thus, the aptasensors would be used in the clinical practice for the elderly healthcare.