Title: nucleic acid aptamers
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - nucleic acid aptamers
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.09709
Status: current

Definition
Single stranded (ss) oligonucleotides (mainly deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or ribonucleic acid (RNA)) originating from in vitro selection, which, starting from random sequence libraries, optimise the nucleic acids for high-affinity binding to a given target.

Note
In vitro selection is an iterative method mainly known as Systematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential enrichment (SELEX).

Source
- PAC, 2018, 90, 1121. 'Terminology of bioanalytical methods (IUPAC Recommendations 2018)' on page 1148 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2016-1120)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09709/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09709/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09709/xml

Citation: Citation: 'nucleic acid aptamers' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.09709
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Accessed: 2026-05-28T13:02:57+00:00