A review of the diagnostic aptamers application in strip kits

Aptamers or chemical antibodies are mostly nucleic acid sequences that can bind to various diverse targets including small molecules, large molecules, and cells. Among the advantages of aptamers compared to antibodies, we can mention the in vitro production process, the possibility of choosing aptamers against toxic and non-immunogenic molecules, long-term storage, and much lower production costs. Aptamers can also be easily modified or stabilized, and their synthesis is associated with high purity and reproducibility, they are chemically stable, and due to their nucleic acid structure, they are much more flexible than antibodies, and they can be used in the form of molecular beacons probes, a combination of use aptamer-target interaction and nucleic acid amplification to achieve highly sensitive detection ranges. These interesting features have made aptamers ideal diagnostic elements for analytical tools such as biosensors, colorimetric methods, surface plasmon resonance, and lab-on-a-chip. However, all these methods require skilled workers and laboratory-based instruments, thus limiting their application. In this regard, lateral flow assay or paper strip kits provide fast and reliable results and only require user intervention in the sample addition phase. Due to their simplicity is widely used in various fields including medicine, food product quality inspection, and environmental safety. In this work, while introducing aptamers, , an overview of its unique application in lateral flow assay and the future of this technology should be studies.