NCJ Number
251232
Date Published
August 2016
Length
9 pages
Annotation
The cocaine aptamer has been viewed as a good candidate for development as a probe for cocaine in many contexts. This study shows that the aptamer binds cocaine, norcocaine, and cocaethylene with similar affinities and aminoglycosides with similar or higher affinities in a mutually exclusive manner with cocaine.
Abstract
Analysis of its affinities for a series of cocaine derivatives shows that the aptamer specificity is the consequence of its interaction with all faces of the cocaine molecule. Circular dichroism spectroscopy and 2-aminopurine (2AP) fluorescence studies show no evidence of large structural rearrangement of the cocaine aptamer upon ligand binding, which is contrary to the general view of this aptamer. The aptamer’s affinity for cocaine and neomycin-B decreases with the inclusion of physiological NaCl. The substitution of 2AP for a in position 6 (2AP6) of the aptamer sequence eliminated the effect of NaCl on its affinities for cocaine and analogues, but not for neomycin-B, showing a selective effect of 2AP substitution on cocaine binding. The affinity for cocaine also decreased with increasing concentrations of serum or urine, with the 2AP6 substitution blunting the effect of urine. Its low affinities for cocaine and metabolites and its ability to bind irrelevant compounds limit the opportunities for application of this aptamer in its current form as a selective and reliable sensor for cocaine; however, these studies also show that a small structural adjustment to the aptamer (2AP exchanged for adenine) can increase its specificity for cocaine in physiological NaCl relative to an off-target ligand. (Publisher abstract modified)
Date Published: August 1, 2016