Vol. 2 No. 5 (2025)

Research Articles

Aptamers Associated with Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Metastasis

Published 2025-09-30

  • Congcong Tang
    • ,
  • Chan Chen
    • ,
  • Faqing Tang

Congcong Tang
Central South University image/svg+xml , Hunan Cancer Hospital image/svg+xml

Chan Chen
Central South University image/svg+xml , Hunan Cancer Hospital image/svg+xml

Faqing Tang
Central South University image/svg+xml , Hunan Cancer Hospital image/svg+xml

Abstract

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) has high metastasis, high recurrence and poorly differentiated clinical characters. There has not been a biomarker for predicting NPC metastasis. Searching for molecular biomarkers linked with NPC metastasis and forecasting NPC metastasis is urgently need to be addressed. This study showed a specific Aptamer (Seq4 and Seq5) to link to NPC metastasis, and may be a potential biomarker for NPC metastasis. In the experiment study, NPC cells 5-8F with high metastatic ability were served as target cells for forward selection and 6-10B cells without metastasis as a reverse selection, cell-SELEX technology was used to screen NPC metastasis specific aptamers. Then, the screening products were sequenced using high-throughput sequencing, some DNA sequences that are associated with NPC metastasis were obtained. Further, these DNA sequences were screened with target cells 5-8F and control cells 6-10B. Finally, the specific combination with NPC cells 5-8F and non-combination with the control cell 6-10B were used to verify the specificity of the Aptamer seq4/seq5. Aptamer seq4/seq5 may be a specific nuclear aptamer for NPC metastasis. This provides a novel molecular marker for early diagnosis and target therapy of NPC metastasis.

Keywords

Aptamer, Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma, Metastasis, Cell-SELEX Technology

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