A simple and sensitive "dipstick" test in serum based on lateral flow separation of aptamer-linked nanostructures.

Aptamers are single-stranded nucleic acids that can be selected from a large random library to bind a number of molecules with high affinity and specificity. Therefore, they are considered to be the nucleic acid version of antibodies. Since its first discovery in the early 1990s, the use of aptamers for sensing and diagnostic applications has been extensively explored. Many detection methods developed for antibodies have been successfully adapted to aptamerbased detections. In many cases, aptamers show similar or even better performance when compared with antibodies in the laboratory. However, practical applications of aptamer-based sensing and diagnostics, such as home and