Select and compare aptamers under different conditions

Projects Andy thought might yield results quickly.

1.) Identify different buffer conditions you might use for selection.

• What are your variables? Ionic strength, pH, metal ions, temperature, what else? Which variables are most interesting or important to a successful selection?
  

2.) Select anti-lysozyme aptamers.
3.) Clone and sequence aptamers.
4.) Compare binding across different sets of conditions.

• Do aptamers that bind at one ionic strength or pH still bind at another? How specific is evolution for a given condition? Are some variables more important than others?

Further questions and issues:

• Has anyone done this before? What does the primary literature look like?
• Do the aptamers from a given pool or different pools bind at the same or different sites on lysozyme? How would you determine this? How might you do an ELISA? What is an ELISA?
• Do your experiments have any bearing on the origin of life? It is thought that modern life was preceded by a 'RNA world.' What is the RNA world hypothesis? Is a robust RNA world more likely under some environmental conditions than others? Did your experiments delimit the conditions under which RNA was more or less functional?