Prion disease is a neurodegenerative disorder, in which the normal prion protein (PrP) changes structurally into an abnormal form and accumulates in the brain. There is a great demand for the development of a viable approach to diagnosis and therapy. Not only has the ligand against PrP been used for diagnosis, but it has also become a promising tool for therapy, as an antibody. Aptamers are a novel type of ligand composed of nucleic acids. DNA aptamers in particular have many advantages over antibodies. Therefore, we tried to isolate the DNA aptamer for mouse PrP. We developed a competitive selection method and tried to screen the DNA aptamer with it. In the fourth round of selection, several clones of the aptamer with an affinity to PrP were enriched, and clone 4-9 showed the highest affinity of all. The investigation by aptamer blotting and Western blotting showed that clone 4-9 was specifically able to recognize both alpha-PrP and beta-PrP. Moreover, it was indicated that clone 4-9 could recognize the flexible region of the N-terminal domain of PrP. These characteristics suggest that clone 4-9 might be a useful tool in prion-disease diagnosis and research.

中文翻译：

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通过竞争选择筛选针对小鼠朊病毒蛋白的 DNA 适体。

朊病毒病是一种神经退行性疾病，其中正常朊病毒蛋白 (PrP) 在结构上改变为异常形式并在大脑中积聚。非常需要开发可行的诊断和治疗方法。PrP 配体不仅已用于诊断，而且作为抗体，它也已成为一种很有前途的治疗工具。适配体是一种由核酸组成的新型配体。与抗体相比，DNA 适配体尤其具有许多优势。因此，我们尝试分离小鼠 PrP 的 DNA 适体。我们开发了一种竞争选择方法，并试图用它来筛选 DNA 适配体。在第四轮选择中，富集了与 PrP 具有亲和力的适体的几个克隆，克隆 4-9 显示出最高的亲和力。适体印迹和蛋白质印迹的调查表明，克隆 4-9 能够特异性识别 α-PrP 和β-PrP。此外，表明克隆4-9可以识别PrP N-末端结构域的柔性区域。这些特征表明，克隆 4-9 可能是朊病毒疾病诊断和研究的有用工具。