Aptamers have shown potential as an alternative to antibodies in clinical diagnostic applications

The bedrock of clinical diagnostics relies on specialized ligands that can identify specific biomarkers associated with pathological changes. While protein antibodies have been used in these assays for the past 40 years, they've proven unreliable for various reasons.

Despite the description of "chemical antibodies," also known as aptamers, nearly 30 years ago as a potential alternative to antibodies, the search for the "perfect" targeting ligand or molecular probe has been slow.

In this review, we'll discuss the issues associated with antibodies and describe some applications of aptamers relevant to the clinical diagnostic setting.

Reference：

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31801185/