The L1 cell adhesion molecule (L1CAM) plays important roles in the development and plasticity of the nervous system as well as in tumor formation, progression, and metastasis. New ligands are necessary tools for biomedical research and the detection of L1CAM. Here, DNA aptamer yly12 against L1CAM was optimized to have much stronger binding affinity (10-24 fold) at room temperature and 37 °C via sequence mutation and extension. This interaction study revealed that the optimized aptamers (yly20 and yly21) adopted a hairpin structure containing two loops and two stems. The key nucleotides for aptamer binding mainly located in loop I and its adjacent area. Stem I mainly played the role of stabilizing the binding structure. The yly-series aptamers were demonstrated to bind the Ig6 domain of L1CAM. This study reveals a detailed molecular mechanism for the interaction between yly-series aptamers and L1CAM and provides guidance for drug development and detection probe design against L1CAM.
Keywords: L1CAM; aptamer; binding mechanism; molecular recognition; sequence optimization.