Application Of Aptamers In Treatment And Diagnosis Of Leukemia

Leukemia is a cancer of blood cells and bone marrow, leading to death in many patients mainly inchildren. Chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation are the main approaches for leukemiatherapy. However, these therapeutic regimens for leukemia show a rather narrow spectrum ascompared with those are available for solid tumors. Over the last several years, aptamersgenerated by SELEX (Systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment) method, havequickly become a new class of targeting ligands for drug delivery applications and recently havebeen widely exploited in different biomedical applications, due to several potent properties such ashigh binding affinity and selectivity, low or no immunogenicity and toxicity, low cost and thermalstability. In this review, we presented in details about aptamers involved in targeting, andtreatment of leukemia. Moreover, some analytical approaches such as electrochemical and opticalaptasensors were introduced for detection and diagnosis of leukemia. Finally, we discussed aboutthe directions and challenges of aptamer application in this field. In conclusion, in this reviewarticle, the advantages and applications of aptamers against leukemia have been reported throughdescriptions of several research projects. Over the last decades, different aptamers have beenselected against leukemia such as sgc8 aptamer which could specifically detect and internalizedinto ALL cells or AS1411 aptamer, a therapeutic aptamer, which is currently undergoing clinicaltrials for treating ALL.