Aptamers as affinity reagents for clinical proteomics

Application of proteomic results to scientific and medical practice will depend in many respects on progress of affinity microchips technologies. This determines continuous search for inexpensive and robust affinity reagents alternative to monoclonal antibodies. Among synthetic mimetics of antibodies, the oligonucleotide aptamers are of the greatest interest as the affinity reagents due to the possibility to automate their selection and due to the low cost of oligonucleotide synthesis. In the review we consider the problems related to the automation and optimization of aptamer selection and also to selection of photoaptamers capable to form photoinduced covalent complexes with the protein targets. The existing approaches to the post-selection modification of the aptamers to increase their affinity and selectivity to protein targets are discussed.