Protein-aptamer interactions assays

In its simplest, QCM, format, protein-aptamer interactions were analyzed by Liss et al. (2002). They compared the interaction of IgE with DNA aptamer as well as with anti-IgE antibodies. Although the detection limit was similar in the two cases, the advantage of the aptasensor was its possibility of surface regeneration, which was impossible for an antigen-based biosensor. However, recently it has been shown that immobilization of anti-IgE on the dendrimer surface also allows us to regenerate an immunosensor (Svobodova et al., 2006). The QCM method was recently compared with the electrochemical biosensor assay of thrombin detection (Hianik et al., 2005, 2007). It has been shown that the sensitivity of thrombin detection was similar for the two methods. Mascini and co-workers showed that similar results in sensitivity and selectivity in the detection of Tat peptide with RNA aptamer can be obtained by the QCM and SPR methods (Tombelli et al., 2005b). 

FRET to occur, and thus no FI emission is observed. The specificity of this assay was also examined for mixed samples. The mixed lysozyme samples were prepared in fetal bovine serum (FBS), human saliva and human urine. It was found that FAM emission was still visible upon addition of each mixed sample, implying that this assay has a great potential for the detection of real biological samples. This study illuminates that introduction of specific aptamer/protein interaction as the recognition event, and utilization of FRET as the signal transduction channel, is an effective way to develop CPE-based protein sensors with good specificity. 

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