Probing high-affinity 11-mer DNA aptamer against Lup an 1 (β-conglutin)

Aptamers are synthetic nucleic acids with great potential as analytical tools. However, the length of selected aptamers (typically 60–100 bases) can affect affinity, due to the presence of bases not required for interaction with the target, and therefore, the truncation of these selected sequences and identification of binding domains is a critical step to produce potent aptamers with higher affinities and specificities and lowered production costs. In this paper we report the truncation of an aptamer that specifically binds to β-conglutin (Lup an 1), an anaphylactic allergen. Through comparing the predicted secondary structures of the aptamers, a hairpin structure with a G-rich loop was determined to be the binding motif. The highest affinity was observed with a truncation resulting in an 11-mer sequence that had an apparent equilibrium dissociation constant (KD) of 1.7 × 10−9 M. This 11-mer sequence was demonstrated to have high specificity for β-conglutin and showed no cross-reactivity to other lupin conglutins (α-, δ-, γ-conglutins) and closely related proteins such as gliadin. Finally, the structure of the truncated 11-mer aptamer was preliminarily elucidated, and the GQRS Mapper strongly predicted the presence of a G-quadruplex, which was subsequently corroborated using one-dimensional NMR, thus highlighting the stability of the truncated structure.