Identification of aptamers for application in the differential diagnosis of ovarian tumor

Abstract

Introduction: Cancer is an important cause of worldwide mortality, killing more than 8 million people every year. The ovarian cancer is one of seven cancer types than most affect womem, and is considered the most fatal among the gynecologic tumors. The ovarian tumor detection presents importants limitations and is highlighted as the most difficult gynecological tumor to be diagosed, hidering the efficiency of the treatment and consequently patients’ survival. Specific molecules produced by tumors could be used as biomarkers and are considered good targets for diagnosis. Thus, the use of aptamers represents an important tool to be applied for the improvement of the specificity in tumor diagnosis. Aptamers are small synthetic nucleic acid sequences, which bind with high specificity to a molecular target, presenting interesting pharmacokinetic stabillity, bioavailability and permanence in blood circulation, and moreover are able to bioconjugation with nanoparticles, imaging agents and therapeutics drugs. Bioinformatics approaches may contribute to the improvement of aptamer identification and studies focusing in target molecule-aptamer interaction. Thus, computational analyzes are being applied to aptamers study, including 3D structural modeling, in silico simulation for aptamers selection by molecular dynamics, modeling of virtual libraries and in silico aptamer optimization.