Whole cell-SELEX aptamers for fluorescence staining of frozen hepatocellular carcinoma tissues

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the most common and deadly cancers in the world, and the development of specific molecular probes for hepatocellular carcinoma diagnosis is of great significance. Recently, aptamer ZY1, which showed excellent specificity against SMMC-7721 human hepatocellular carcinoma cells, was selected by our group through cell-SELEX. In this study, aptamer ZY1 was labelled with Cy5 to serve as a fluorescence probe, and its efficacy in fluorescence staining of frozen SMMC-7721 xenograft tissues was tested. The results indicated that the aptamer not only showed high specificity in identifying SMMC-7721 carcinoma, but also exhibited high efficiency in differentiating liver carcinomas of different subtypes. Moreover, the time required for tissue staining was as short as 10 min. These results strongly support the potential of the aptamer for future application in cancer diagnosis.