ИСТИНА

Nucleic acid aptamers are prospective recognizing elements for therapy and diagnostics of various diseases. Unique spatial structure of an aptamer is selected for tight binding a target (protein, small molecule, or ion) via SELEX method. Aptamers are capable of binding with nanomolar affinity like antibodies. They also offer several advantages over antibodies: 1) availability of non-immunogenic targets; 2) reproducible chemical synthesis with modifications; 3) simple folding and refolding. In our work, we combined surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with labeled aptamers to create colloidal aptasensors using aggregated silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) for detection of respiratory viruses such as influenza A and SARS-CoV-2.