Tabriz University of Medical Sciences BioImpacts 2228-5652 4 4 2014 12 29 Nanoscaled aptasensors for multi-analyte sensing 205 215 10.15171/bi.2014.015 EN Mehdi Saberian-Borujeni Mohammad Johari-Ahar Hossein Hamzeiy Jaleh Barar https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0105-919X Yadollah Omidi https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0067-2475 Journal Article 10.15171/bi.2014.015 2015 08 22 Introduction: Nanoscaled aptamers (Aps), as short single-stranded DNA or RNA oligonucleotides, are able to bind to their specific targets with high affinity, upon which they are considered as powerful diagnostic and analytical sensing tools (the so-called "aptasensors"). Aptamers are selected from a random pool of oligonucleotides through a procedure known as "systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment". Methods: In this work, the most recent studies in the field of aptasensors are reviewed and discussed with a main focus on the potential of aptasensors for the multi-analyte detection(s). Results: Due to the specific folding capability of aptamers in the presence of analyte, aptasensors have substantially successfully been exploited for the detection of a wide range of small and large molecules (e.g., drugs and their metabolites, toxins, and associated biomarkers in various diseases) at very low concentrations in the biological fluids/samples even in presence of interfering species. Conclusion: Biological samples are generally considered as complexes in the real biological media. Hence, the development of aptasensors with capability to determine various targets simultaneously within a biological matrix seems to be our main challenge. To this end, integration of various key scientific dominions such as bioengineering and systems biology with biomedical researches are inevitable.