RECONOCIMIENTO DE TROFOZOÍTOS DE E. HISTOLYTICA UTILIZANDO APTÁMEROS DE DNA

The limitations in the diagnosis of intestinal amoebiasis caused by Entamoeba histolytica highlight the need to develop new alternatives for detecting the parasite. Aptamers (single-stranded DNA or RNA sequences) represent a novel and low-cost tool for the recognition of proteins and other types of targets and can therefore be used for the treatment or diagnosis of various diseases. Therefore, the objective of this work was to obtain DNA aptamers that recognize E. histolytica trophozoites. In this study, the Bio-SELEX strategy was used to obtain DNA aptamers directed against E. histolytica membrane proteins, and the Dot Blot technique was used for their validation. The ssDNA sequences obtained from the last round of Bio-SELEX selection were able to recognize E. histolytica proteins in the Dot Blot assay, unlike the unbound sequences from the first round of selection.