With extensive experience in aptamer development, our scientists are confident in providing a full range of aptamer screening services to advance science and technology development. Creative Biolabs is able to provide aptamer screening services for a variety of small molecules in an efficient and high-quality manner.
Nucleic acid aptamers screened for small molecules can be used to construct chemical and biological sensors that recognize the molecule. Since the nucleic acid aptamer does not respond to other impurity molecules or analogs of the target or has only a weak response, highly selective recognition of the molecular target can be achieved.
In 1994, researchers screened the RNA nucleic acid aptamer of theophylline. It is noteworthy that the difference between theophylline and caffeine is only a methyl group on the N7 atom, but the affinity of the RNA aptamer for theophylline was 10,000 times higher than that of caffeine, indicating that the RNA aptamer has a very high ability to recognize and distinguish theophylline and caffeine with minor differences in functional groups.
Nucleic acid aptamer screening usually requires immobilization of the target molecule on the vector, and the immobilized vector may also interact with the nucleic acid molecule in the nucleic acid library, so it is necessary to perform negative screening. The nucleic acid library is pre-mixed with the vector and incubated, the nucleic acid molecules bound to the vector are deducted, and the remaining nucleic acid library is then used to interact with the target. The negative screening can exclude the binding of vector and nucleic acid library, and improve the efficiency and specificity of nucleic acid aptamer screening.
In order to improve the specificity of nucleic acid aptamers, counter-SELEX can also be performed. The nucleic acid library is incubated with molecules that have similar structures to the target, and the remaining nucleic acid library is screened against the target to reduce the binding of nucleic acid aptamers to similarly structured molecules and to improve the specificity of nucleic acid aptamers to the target.
Fig 1. Process of complex target SELEX [1].
With our technology platform, Creative Biolabs provides high-quality aptamer screening service for small molecules.
We committed to help our customers obtain high-quality aptamers more efficiently. If you are interested in this service, please contact us for more details.
Creative Biolabs provides the most comprehensive services for aptamer development projects. Our cutting-edge technology allows our researchers to fulfill your requirement from various aspects and to offer the most suitable solution for your project.
Reference
