Translation of aptamers toward clinical diagnosis and commercialization

The dominance of antibodies in diagnostics has gradually changed following the discovery of aptamers in the early 1990s. Aptamers offer inherent advantages over traditional antibodies, including higher specificity, higher affinity, smaller size, greater stability, ease of manufacture, and low immunogenicity, rendering them the best candidates for point-of-care testing (POCT). In the past 20 years, the research community and pharmaceutical companies have made great efforts to promote the development of aptamer technology. Macugen® (pegaptanib) was the first aptamer drug approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and various aptamer-based diagnostics show great promise in preclinical research and clinical trials. In this review, we introduce recent literature, ongoing clinical trials, commercial reagents of aptamer-based diagnostics, discuss the FDA regulatory mechanisms, and highlight the prospects and challenges in translating these studies into viable clinical diagnostic tools.