Aptamers and the RNA World, Past and Present

Aptamers and the SELEX process were discovered over two decades ago. These discoveries have spawned a productive academic and commercial industry. The collective results provide insights into biology, past and present, through an in vitro evolutionary exploration of the nature of nucleic acids and their potential roles in ancient life. Aptamers have helped usher in an RNA renaissance. Here we explore some of the evolution of the aptamer field and the insights it has provided for conceptualizing an RNAworld, from its nascence to our current endeavor employing aptamers in human proteomics to discover biomarkers of health and disease. Outline 1 Introduction 2 The history of SELEX and aptamers 3 Proteomics: Driving SELEX to the best possible "winners" 4 SOMAmer specificity 5 SOMAmer structure 6 Quantitative probing of the plasma proteome at high content and low limits of detection 7 Back to the RNA world 8 Conclusions: What other functions might oligonucleotides have?