Selective inhibition of cancer cell migration using a pH-responsive nucleobase-modified DNA aptamer

Because of the extracellular acidic microenvironment of cancer cells, many pH-responsive molecules have become indispensable materials for bioanalysis and targeted therapy development. pH-Responsive DNA aptamers, which selectively bind to target proteins in cancer cells, have become a key research target in the therapeutic field. However, conventional pH-responsive aptamers have fatal drawbacks, such as complex structures, sequence limitation, and difficulties in mass production, as they require special nucleic acid structures, including the i-motif and DNA triplex. To address these issues, we utilized An^C, which is an unnatural nucleobase with a pK _a of 5.9, to construct a simple pH-responsive DNA aptamer (CSL1-II) for selective binding to the c-Met protein expressed in cancer cells. CSL1-II in a weakly acidic environment had a stronger inhibitory effect on the HGF/c-Met pathway and exerted a strong controlling effect on the spreading and migration of cancer cells. Our strategy provides a simple and versatile method to develop pH-responsive DNA aptamers and represents the first example of a cancer-selective c-Met antagonist that inhibits cell migration.