Aptamers as promising nanotheranostic tools in the COVID-19 pandemic era

The emergence of SARS-COV-2, the causative agent of new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has become a pandemic threat. Early and precise detection of the virus is vital for effective diagnosis and treatment. Various testing kits and assays, including nucleic acid detection methods, antigen tests, serological tests, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), have been implemented or are being explored to detect the virus and/or characterize cellular and antibody responses to the infection. However, these approaches have inherent drawbacks such as nonspecificity, high cost, are characterized by long turnaround times for test results, and can be labor-intensive. Also, the circulating SARS-COV-2 variant of concerns, reduced antibody sensitivity and/or neutralization, and possible antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) have warranted the search for alternative potent therapeutics. Aptamers, which are single-stranded oligonucleotides, generated artificially by SELEX (Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment) may offer the capacity to generate high-affinity neutralizers and/or bioprobes for monitoring relevant SARS-COV-2 and COVID-19 biomarkers. This article reviews and discusses the prospects of implementing aptamers for rapid point-of-care detection and treatment of SARS-COV-2. We highlight other SARS-COV-2 targets (N protein, spike protein stem-helix), SELEX augmented with competition assays and in silico technologies for rapid discovery and isolation of theranostic aptamers against COVID-19 and future pandemics. It further provides an overview on site-specific bioconjugation approaches, customizable molecular scaffolding strategies, and nanotechnology platforms to engineer these aptamers into ultrapotent blockers, multivalent therapeutics, and vaccines to boost both humoral and cellular immunity against the virus. This article is categorized under: Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Emerging Technologies Diagnostic Tools > Biosensing Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Nanomedicine for Infectious Disease Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Nanomedicine for Respiratory Disease.