Ebola Virus Aptamers: From Highly Efficient Selection to Application on Magnetism-Controlled Chips

• Published in: Analytical chemistry (Washington) Vol. 91; no. 5; pp. 3367 - 3373
• Main Authors: Hong, Shao-Li, Xiang, Meng-Qi, Tang, Man, Pang, Dai-Wen, Zhang, Zhi-Ling
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 05.03.2019
• Subjects: Aptamers; Beads; Chemistry; Ebola virus; Ebolavirus; Magnetism; Prevention; Proteins; Signal processing; Viruses
• ISSN: 0003-2700; 1520-6882
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.8b04623

Aptamers for Ebola virus (EBOV) offer a powerful means for prevention and diagnostics. Unfortunately, few aptamers for EBOV have been discovered yet. Herein, assisted by magnetism-controlled selection chips to strictly manipulate selection conditions, a highly efficient aptamer selection platform for EBOV is proposed. With highly stringent selection conditions of rigorous washing, manipulation of minuscule amounts of magnetic beads, and real-time evaluation of the selection effectiveness, the selection performance of the platform was improved significantly. In only three rounds of selection, the high-performance aptamers for EBOV GP and NP proteins were obtained simultaneously, with dissociation constants (K d) in the nanomolar range. The aptamer was further applied to the detection of EBOV successfully, with a detection limit of 4.2 ng/mL. The whole detection process that consisted of sample mixing, separation, and signal acquisition was highly integrated and conducted in a magnetism-controlled detection chip, showing high biosafety and great potential for point-of-care detection. The method may open up new avenues for prevention and control of EBOV.