Characterization and target identification of a DNA aptamer that labels pluripotent stem cells

作者：Zhonggang Hou, Susanne Meyer, Nicholas E. Propson, Jeff Nie, Peng Jiang, Ron Stewart, James A. Thomson · 发表于：Cell Research · 年份：2015 · DOI：10.1038/cr.2015.7 · 被引用次数：82 · 研究领域：Advanced biosensing and bioanalysis techniques、DNA and Nucleic Acid Chemistry、RNA Interference and Gene Delivery

Aptamers are short stretches of nucleotides or amino-acid residues that are engineered to bind to various targets, from small chemicals to large proteins and live cells 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 . Aptamers are normally selected through a process called systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX), in which aptamers are selected from a random library of oligonucleotides or peptides against a target through repeated rounds of selection and amplification 2 . As a versatile affinity reagent, aptamers can be used to modulate the behavior of cells 6 , 7 , to detect chemical substances in solution 8 , 9 , as alternatives to antibodies 5 , 10 and as therapeutic reagents for human diseases 11 . As aptamers are chemically synthesized in vitro , they offer a great advantage in selection, production, transportation and storage over traditional antibodies. Also, they can come with many types of chemical modifications, which is useful in cell biology. Although many aptamers have been selected against different tissues and cell types, including mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) 12 , aptamers that specifically label human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) are still lacking, likely due to the delicate nature of these cells. In this report, we present the first in-depth analysis of a DNA aptamer that specifically labels PSCs. We show that this aptamer can be used as an excellent affinity reagent and functions in hESC enrichment and depletion, and in induced PSC (iPSC) enrichment duri...