Aptamers—A Promising Approach for Sensing of Biothreats Using Different Bioinformatics Tools - Soft Nanoscience Letters

SNL > Vol.3 No.4, November 2013

Aptamers—A Promising Approach for Sensing of Biothreats Using Different Bioinformatics Tools ()

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DOI: 10.4236/snl.2013.34A001 6,405 Downloads 8,885 Views Citations

Author(s)

Anamika Sharma, Rakesh Kumar Sharma

Affiliation(s)

Department of CBRN Defence, Institute of Nuclear Medicine & Allied Sciences, Delhi, India..

ABSTRACT

Intentional release of pathogens or biotoxin against humans, plants, or animals is an impending threat all over the world. Continuous monitoring of environment is required for their detection. These signals can help to distinguish whether the bioattack has occurred or not. Biosensors utilise biological response including different biochemical reactions, antigen antibody reactions, electrochemical reactions, aptameric reactions etc. The currently available biosensors have a limit of detection, specificity and less linearity which affect their sensitivity. Aptamers are single stranded oligonucleotides binding species which are capable of tightly binding to their distinguishing targets. They are evolved from random oligonucleotides pools by using different strategies. These are capable of conscientiously distinguishing their target ligands. They have high sensitivity and a wide range of detection limit. The versatility of nucleic acid based methods allowed for the design of specific aptamer sequences, typically on the order of 10 to 30 base pairs in length, identifying the different biothreat agents in the environment. By using different bioinformatics tools we can design RNA aptamers for toxins of lectin family.

KEYWORDS

Biosensors; Aptamers; SELEX; Insilco Designing

Share and Cite:

A. Sharma and R. Sharma, "Aptamers—A Promising Approach for Sensing of Biothreats Using Different Bioinformatics Tools," Soft Nanoscience Letters, Vol. 3 No. 4A, 2013, pp. 1-5. doi: 10.4236/snl.2013.34A001.

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