Figure 1. LCN2-SELEX (Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential enrichment) process.

The SELEX process starts with a very large library of DNA. After incubation with the random DNA library, the discrimination steps are performed to isolate aptamers that can specifically bind to LCN2. After a washing step to remove the unbound species, aptamer candidates are eluted and amplified by PCR. The amplified DNA is used to conduct another selection round. All parts of this figure were drawn by the authors K-A. L. and J-Y. A.