Controlled substance abuse is a common, yet serious, problem in society and is becoming more prevalent all the time. However, there are still a number of issues with everyday drug testing methods. These include, but aren’t limited to; low selectivity for the target, high cost, and long assay times. In this project we address some of these problems by proposing a fast, selective method using split aptamers. As a proof of concept we are using the steroid targets dehydoisoandrosterone 3-sulfate (DIS) and sodium deoxycholate (DCA). In the presence of the steroid target the split aptamer fragments will assemble, forming a morpholino linkage. When this method is coupled with qPCR it can become semi-automatable, significantly decreasing the associated costs of running an assay. Since aptamers can be developed for a variety of small-molecule targets, this project could have the potential to provide the initial assay development studies needed to help extend this method to other small molecule drug targets.

Coupling qPCR to split aptamer ligation for the detection of steroid targets

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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