The development of aptamer-based probes for the detection of TB antigens ESAT-6.CFP-10 potential TB diagnostic tools

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.Lack of point-of-care (PoC) diagnostic tools for TB hinders control of the disease, particularly in resource-limited, high HIV and TB prevalence countries. Therefore, there is a need for simple, rapid, accurate, and affordable PoC diagnostics to detect active TB early enough for opportune intervention. To develop TB detection probes that will constitute such diagnostics, our research group recently isolated DNA aptamers that bind to a putative marker for active TB; the ESAT-6.CFP-10 heterodimer. Aptamers are highly specific artificial mimics of antibodies that have shown great prospects in diagnostic applications. The aim of this study was to characterise the anti-ESAT-6.CFP-10 aptamers, and to optimise them into more specific and affordable detection probes for the development of potential PoC TB diagnostic tools