Aptamer-Based Hydrogels and Their Applications

Abstract

Hydrogels are water-retainable materials that can absorb a large amount of water. Different stimuli can be used to stimulate the hydrogels with a variety of physical and chemical changes, thus leading to numerous applications in bioanal-ysis and biomedicine. Aptamers are special types of single-stranded DNA generated by a process called systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX). They are able to specifically recognize a wide range of targets which vary from ions, small molecules, to proteins, and even whole cells. Aptamer incorpo-ration has greatly expanded the applications of hydrogels. Due to their unique properties, such as biocompatibility, selective binding, and molecular recognition, these aptamer-based hydrogels can be utilized for target-responsive hydrogel engineering. In this chapter, we discuss a variety of applications of aptamer-based hydrogels, especially in sensing, target capture and separation, control of target release and in vivo applications.