Chemical Tailoring of Aptamer Glues with Significantly Enhanced Recognition Ability for Targeted Membrane Protein Degradation
Guorong Zhang, Weihong Tan, Xue‐Qiang Wang
Abstract
Cell membrane proteins play a crucial role in the development of early cancer diagnosis strategies and precision medicine techniques. However, the application of aptamers in cell membrane protein-based biomedical research is limited by their inherent drawbacks, such as sensitivity to the recognition environment and susceptibility to enzymatic degradation, which leads to the loss of recognition ability. To address these challenges, this study presents a subzero-temperature-enabled molecule stacking strategy for the on-demand tailoring of aptamer glues for the precision recognition and efficient degradation of membrane protein. Mechanistic studies revealed that nucleic acid molecule stacking occurred during the freezing and melting processes, facilitating a rapid click reaction by bringing two reactive groups together. In vitro investigations demonstrated that the strategy confers aptamer glues with significantly enhanced specific recognition ability and binding affinity, allowing the distinction of a targeted cell line from a nontargeted cell line. Moreover, the engineered aptamer glue exhibited impressive targeted cell membrane protein degradation ability; around 74% of the c-Met protein was degraded in 24 h. These findings hold great potential for advancing cancer diagnosis and targeted therapy through the development of more stable and reliable aptamer probes.