Aptamer-Based Drug Delivery Systems

Recently, aptamer-based drug delivery systems (DDSs) emerged as attractive platforms for precise medicine by targeting to disease cells and reducing the side effects. Aptamers are single-stranded RNA or DNA with high binding affinity and specificity against their corresponding targets, such as metal ions, peptides, proteins, and living cells. Compared with classic antibodies, aptamers have many superiorities, such as small size, little immunogenicity, no batch-to-batch variation, low cost-efficiency, and easy modification, which made them to be promising targeting ligands for drug delivery. Aptamers conjugated DDSs can be selectively uptaken by targeted cells via receptor-mediated internalization. Currently, various aptamer-mediated DDSs have been developed to realize specific drug delivery and improved therapeutic effects for diverse diseases. In this chapter, the recent advances on aptamer-based drug delivery for disease treatment are systematically reviewed. The recent advances in aptamers as therapeutics, aptamer-drug conjugates (ApDCs) and aptamer-functionalized nanoparticle drug delivery systems are summarized. The present challenges and future perspectives are also discussed.