Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 15, Issue 12, 2015

Aptamers- short nucleic acid or peptide ligands- attracted considerable attention across various disciplines as target specific therapeutic, delivery vehicle and diagnostic tools. The applicability of aptamers - often termed as ‘chemical antibodies’ – continues to grow and possess certain edge over the antibody counterpart. In this special issue, we have invited seven contributors to highlight the chemical biology, therapeutic, bio Read More

Apatamer technology has been around for a quarter of a century and the field had matured enough to start seeing real applications, especially in the medical field. Since their discovery, aptamers rapidly emerged as key players in many fields, such as diagnostics, drug discovery, food science, drug delivery and therapeutics. Because of their synthetic nature, aptamers are evolving at an exponential rate gaining from the newest Read More

Peptide aptamers are small combinatorial proteins that are selected to bind to specific sites on their target molecules. Peptide aptamers consist of short, 5-20 amino acid residues long sequences, typically embedded as a loop within a stable protein scaffold. Various peptide aptamer scaffolds and in vitro and in vivo selection techniques are reviewed with emphasis on specific biomedical, bioimaging, and bioanalytical applications.

The use of aptamers as targeting molecules has revolutionized nanomedicine. Aptamers are short oligonucleotides or peptides that can be used as targeting ligands against numerous targets. Aptamers are versatile moieties that can be used both in therapeutic and targeting applications. Aptamers bind to the target in a process that is similar to the lock and key mechanism. There are numerous reports on the use of apta Read More

Aptamers represent the novel class of oligonucleotides holding multiple applications in the area of biomedicine. The advancements introduced with the Systematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential enrichment (SELEX) approach further eased the scope of producing modified aptamers within a short span yet retaining the properties of stability and applicability. In the recent times, aptamers were identified to have the potential fo Read More

Aptamers have been increasingly applied in biomedical field as a class of biorecognition elements that possess many advantages such as high specificity and binding affinity, easy synthesis, easy modification, small size, non-toxicity and good stability. Many diseases like cancer exhibit cellular aberrations at morphological and molecular levels. Medical diagnosis based on molecular features can be highly specific and extremely Read More

Aptamers are single-stranded oligonucleotides with high affinity and specificity to the target molecules or cells, thus they can serve as an important category of molecular targeting ligand. Since their discovery, aptamers have been rapidly translated into clinical practice. The strong target affinity/selectivity, cost-effectivity, chemical versatility and safety of aptamers are superior to traditional peptides- or proteins-based liga Read More

Twenty-five years after the emergence of powerful molecular recognition elements known as aptamers, these synthetic receptors are finding applications in therapeutics, imaging, diagnostics and biosensors. Comparisons have been drawn between aptamers and antibodies since their earliest days. This review will highlight how some of the most promising and successful aptamer-based applications have exploited the a Read More