The sensitive and specific detection of pathogenic cells is essential in clinical diagnostics. To achieve this, molecular tools are required that unequivocally recognise appropriate cell surface molecules, such as biomarkers that come along with disease onset and progression. Aptamers are short single-stranded oligonucleotides that interact with cognate target molecules with high affinity and specificity. Within the last years they have gained an increased attention as cell-recognition tools. Here, we report a systematic analysis of a cell-SELEX procedure, for the identification of aptamers that recognise breast cancer cells. Besides a comparison of conventional (Sanger) with high-throughput sequencing techniques (next-generation sequencing), three different screening techniques have been applied to characterise the binding properties of selected aptamer candidates. This method has been found to be beneficial in finding DNA aptamers, rarely enriched in the libraries. Finally, four DNA aptamers were identified that exhibit broad-spectrum interaction patterns to different cancer cell lines derived from solid tumours.

致病细胞的灵敏和特异性检测对于临床诊断至关重要。为此，需要分子工具明确识别适当的细胞表面分子，例如伴随疾病发作和进展的生物标志物。适体是短的单链寡核苷酸，其以高亲和力和特异性与同源靶分子相互作用。在过去的几年中，它们作为细胞识别工具得到了越来越多的关注。在这里，我们报告了细胞SELEX程序的系统分析，用于识别识别乳腺癌细胞的适体。除了将传统（Sanger）与高通量测序技术（下一代测序）进行比较之外，已应用三种不同的筛选技术来表征所选适体候选物的结合特性。已经发现该方法对于发现很少在文库中富集的DNA适体是有益的。最后，鉴定了四个DNA适体，它们对源自实体瘤的不同癌细胞系表现出广谱相互作用模式。