Abstract
In this chapter, we present a special class of nucleic acid probes, called molecular aptamer beacons, which combine the specific recognition of aptamers and the signal transduction of molecular beacons. By using SELEX process, single-stranded aptamers can be selected to bind essentially any targets ranging from ions, small molecules, peptides, proteins, virus, and even whole cells. Aptamers have gained increasing attention in the field of molecular recognition, design of biosensors, and investigation of RNAs in living cells due to their good selectivity, high affinity, convenient synthesis, and easy modification. There are different designs of molecular aptamer beacons, such as replacing the loop part of molecular beacons into a target-specific sequence, splitting an aptamer into two subunits that reconstructed in the presence of target molecules, and structure-switching molecular beacons. In addition, we also present detailed discussion on the molecular aptamer beacons developed for fluorescent, electrochemical, and optical applications.
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Wu, C., Yang, C.J., Tan, W. (2013). Molecular Aptamer Beacons. In: Yang, C., Tan, W. (eds) Molecular Beacons. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39109-5_11
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