Fig. 1

Application areas of aptamers in PDAC. Aptamers, can specifically bind target molecules and owing to their combinatorial properties for the incorporation of therapeutics and diagnostics agents, can be used as targeted theranostic (therapeutics plus diagnostics) in PDAC. a By specifically binding to the extracellular domain of the receptor, aptamers can work as competitive inhibitors and block cancer-related signaling in target cells. b Instead of nucleosides, nucleoside analogs, including gemcitabine and 5-FU, can be incorporated into aptamers. These nucleoside analog coupled aptamers can be specifically internalized and act as anti-proliferative agents. c Different kinds of oligonucleotides, including anti-miRNAs, ASOs, miRNAs, and siRNAs, can be incorporated into aptamers. These oligonucleotides coupled aptamers can function in targeted gene therapy in PDAC. d Aptamers can be incorporated into several multimodal drug delivery systems as carriers for targeted therapy and targeted imaging. e By integrating different readout methods, aptamers can be used as biosensors to detect defined biomarkers, CTCs and CSCs using aptamer-based ELISA methods. f Aptamers can be incorporated with different contrast agents to increase the sensitivity and precision of cancer detection by targeted molecular imaging. (Abbreviations: Anti-miRNAs: microRNAs inhibitors; ASOs, antisense oligonucleotides; miRNA: microRNAs; siRNA: short interfering RNAs; CTCs: cancer stem cells; CSCs: circulating tumor cells; ELISA: Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay)