Kanamycin Aptamer SELEX Coming to a Full Loop

Yijing Chen; Juewen Liu

Abstract

A DNA aptamer for kanamycin originally reported in 2012 was unexpectedly found to belong to the same sequence family as a newly selected aptamer following binding assay-guided truncation and sequence analysis. This observation highlights how aptamers with apparently unrelated full-length sequences can converge to a common functional motif after removal of nonessential regions. The resulting aptamer, with a K_d below 100 nM under physiological conditions, is expected to be useful for monitoring kanamycin, an important aminoglycoside antibiotic with a narrow therapeutic window.

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