Introducing aptamers for super-resolution microscopy

March 9, 2016
What do you use if antibodies are too large for super resolution microscopy? Aptamers. These are small affinity reagents (~ 2 nm!) that interact with their target in the same way as an antibody, but without the hefty backbone attached.
What do you use if antibodies are too large for super resolution microscopy? Aptamers. These are small affinity reagents (~ 2 nm!) that interact with their target in the same way as an antibody, but without the hefty backbone attached.
The BioOptics World take on this story:

Recognizing that antibodies are too large to use as labels for super-resolution microscopy, scientists have taken antibodies' target recognition and fluorescent tagging features to create small affinity reagents with a typical molecular size of ~2 nm. Called aptamers, the reagents are generated in exactly the same way as recombinant antibodies are by using phage display technology. They allow scientists to position a fluorescent tag on an affinity molecule close to the binding site, enabling more precise live-cell imaging.

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