DEVELOPMENT OF METHAMPHETAMINE SPECIFIC DNA APTAMER
Project no. 486 · Status: Kapanmış · 2018
Summary
Methamphetamine is a widely abused and highly addictive psychostimulant and neurotoxic drug. There are many medical, social and economic problems associated with methamphetamine abuse. Abuse of methamphetamine has become a growing international problem all over the world. Addiction is one of the most common, expensive and challenging health problems facing society. However, production and abuse of amphetamine derivatives (methamphetamine etc.) continues to increase. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime the number of methamphetamine users worldwide is close to the number of both opiate and cocaine users. In previous studies, laboratory tests of biological samples such as urine, blood and hair have been used to test drug abuse. However, many problems of sample obtaining difficulties and risk of adulteration or alteration appear. Various limitations such as low sensitivity and selectivity, operational implementation challenges and the use of toxic solvents have led to the need for the development of new and practical methods for methamphetamine analyses. As result of such limitations, there is a need to develop faster and cheaper methods to determine methamphetamine which may be an alternative to these methods. In this study, ssDNA aptamers were selected against methamphetamine by using GO-SELEX (Graphene-Oxide Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment) method. Aptamers are single-stranded DNA or RNA oligonucleotides that can bind with high affinity and specificity to their targets with their three-dimensional folding specific to their sequence. Aptamers can be developed to bind to many different ligand types, from a single molecule to complex analyte mixture and from cells to a whole organism, depending on their three-dimensional structure. One of the most practical and selective SELEX methods for the development of aptamers for small molecules is graphene-oxide SELEX (GO-SELEX). Within the framework of this study, aptamers developed for methamphetamine were characterized by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC). The selectivity and affinity of the developed aptamers is promising for the development of novel aptasensors for the analysis of the methamphetamine molecule with µM level affinity in biological samples.