Aptamer-assembled nanomaterials for biosensing and biomedical applications

Abstract

Aptamers represent a class of single-stranded DNA or RNA oligonucleotides that play important roles in biosensing and biomedical applications. However, aptamers can gain more flexibility as molecular recognition tools by taking advantage of the unique chemical and physical properties provided by nanomaterials. Such aptamer-nanomaterial conjugates are having an increasing impact in the fields of biosensing, bioimaging, and therapy. The recent advances and limitations of aptamer-assembled nanomaterials in biosensing and biomedical applications are briefly introduced and discussed. Copyright © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.