Strengths and weaknesses of aptamers in comparison with antibodies
Criteria
Aptamers
Antibodies
Size
5–15 kDa
150–180 kDa
• Target accessibility
High
Low
• Minimal target size
60 Da
600 Da
• Tissue/tumor penetration
High
Low
• Clearance rate
Rapid
Slow
Basic composition
Nucleotides
Amino acids
• Resistance to harsh environment conditions (pH and temperature)
High
Low
• Shelf-life
Long
Limited
• Versatility to chemical
High
Limited
• Nuclease degradation
Sensitive; limited half-life in vivo (unmodified)
Resistant; long half-life in vivo
Therapeutic efficacy
• Affinity and specificity
KD, nano/pico
KD, nano/pico
• Immunogenicity
Low/none
High
• Modulation of target activity
Yes
Yes
• Fc-mediated effector
No
Yes
Discovery
• Time
In vitro SELEX, 2–8 weeks
In vivo biological process, 6
Production
• Scale up
Easy
Hard
• Batch to batch variation
None
High
KD values: dissociation constants
Declarations
Author contributions
Conceptualization: LC; writing-original draft preparation: LC; writing-review and editing: LA, SC, MF, LC. All the authors gave final approval of the version to be published.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Ethical approval
Not applicable.
Consent to participate
Not applicable.
Consent to publication
Not applicable.
Availability of data and materials
Not applicable.
Funding
This work was supported by Fondazione AIRC per la Ricerca sul Cancro (IG 23052) to LC. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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