Aptamers are a series of high-affinity and high-specificity oligoneucleotides (single-stranded DNA or RNA) to the target, usually selected by the combinatorial chemistry SELEX technique (systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment). Aptamers have proved to be one kind of novel functional molecules in life science and chemistry. After being labeled by signaling groups, the aptamer probe can conveniently transfer the characteristics of aptamer-target recognition to a form of high-sensitive signal, and the high-affinity, high-specificity measurements of metal ion, organic molecules, nucleic acid, proteins, or cells become possible. This article summarizes the recent advances of aptamer probes in different sensing fields, with special emphasis on aptamer probes as fluorescent sensors.
LI YiLinGUO LeiZHANG ZhaoYangTANG JiJunXIE JianWei
