Aptamers in diagnostic and molecular imaging applications

Abstract

The origin of the term diagnostic comes from the Greek word gnosis, meaning “to know.” In medicine, a diagnostic can predict the pathology risk, disease status, treatment, and prognosis, even following therapy. An early and correct diagnosis is necessary for an efficient treatment. Moreover, it is possible to predict if and why a therapy will be successful or fail, enabling the timely application of alternative therapeutic strategies. Available diagnostics are due to the advances in biotechnology; however, more sensitive, low-cost, and noninvasive methodologies are still a challenge. Knowledge about molecular characteristics provide personalized information, which is the goal of future medicine. Today, multiple diagnostic techniques have emerged, with which it is possible to distinguish molecular patterns. In this way, aptamers are the perfect tools to recognize molecular targets and can be easily modified to confer additional functions. Their versatile characteristics and low cost make aptamers ideal for diagnostic applications. This chapter is a review of aptamer-based diagnostics in biomedicine, with a special focus on probe design and molecular imaging.