Dr. Teresa Przytycka, National Institutes of Health investigator and leader of a team of scientists, recently created a novel software tool to help drug developers and researchers create new products.
The tool, dubbed AptaTRACE, is designed to help professionals detect the molecules that are most effective and precise in binding to targets.
Aptamers, which are short DNA and RNA molecules, bind accurately and firmly to many different biological targets. These are effective because of how they structure and sequence -- similar to various biochemical characteristics located on the surface of the target.
Potential AptaTRACE targets include proteins, organic molecules, whole cells, protein complexes and virus surfaces. Because of the diversity of these targets, aptamers are uniquely qualified for many applications, including drug delivery systems, molecular biosensors and antibody replacement.
AptaTRACE is used with High-Throughput Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (HT-SELEX), which is a laboratory technique that detects aptamers in the body. The method detects countless sequences to find targets for binding.
“This research is an excellent example of how the benefits of ‘big data’ critically depend upon the existence of algorithms that are capable of transforming such data into information,” Przytycka, a senior investigator at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a division of the NIH’s National Library of Medicine, said.
