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Characterization of troponin T binding aptamers for an innovative enzyme-linked oligonucleotide assay (ELONA)

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Abstract

Early diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is of outmost importance to reduce the mortality rate, and cardiac troponins are considered the gold standard biomarkers of myocardial necrosis. In this scenario, the characterization of two troponin T (TnT)-binding aptamers as viable alternative to antibodies employed on clinical immunoassays is here reported for the first time. Their recognition ability was first investigated through surface plasmon resonance (SPR). Subsequently, an enzyme-linked oligonucleotide assay (ELONA) was developed on common 96-well polystyrene plates, both by direct and sandwich detection strategies for comparison. In both cases, the assay exhibits a detection ability of TnT in the range of low nanomolar but a great advantage on serum interference was obtained by using both aptamers in a sandwich format, with excellent reproducibility and recovery values. Despite the sensitivity needing to be enhanced to the low picomolar range, these results are encouraging for the development of new, low-cost, and rapid antibody-free colorimetric assays for AMI studies based on aptamer–Troponin T recognition.

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Acknowledgments

Simona Scarano thanks the Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) for the scientific program SIR2014 Scientific Independence of young Researchers (RBSI1455LK), ‘Early diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction by nanosensing: coupling emerging bioreceptors for Troponin T to Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance (LSPR) for a high sensitive point-of-care testing’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Chimica “Ugo Schiff”, Via della Lastruccia 3-13, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, FI, Italy

    Francesca Torrini, Pasquale Palladino, Alvaro Brittoli, Veronica Baldoneschi, Maria Minunni & Simona Scarano

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  1. Francesca Torrini
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  2. Pasquale Palladino
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Correspondence to Simona Scarano.

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Published in the topical collection New Developments in Biosensors with guest editors Francesco Baldini and Maria Minunni.

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Torrini, F., Palladino, P., Brittoli, A. et al. Characterization of troponin T binding aptamers for an innovative enzyme-linked oligonucleotide assay (ELONA). Anal Bioanal Chem 411, 7709–7716 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-019-02014-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-019-02014-7

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