Table 3.

Advantages and disadvantages of nucleic acid amplification-based diagnostic methods vs Aptamer based diagnostic methods.

Method	Advantages	Disadvantages
Nucleic acid amplification-based diagnostic methods	Ability to differentiate among strains and species	Limited targets to nucleic acid
	High sensitivity and specificity	High-cost
	No need for viable organism	Expensive labeled reagents (probes)
	Simplicity and universal procedure	Pre-analytical sample preparation
	Availability in markets	Need for additional detection step after amplification
	Easy getting approved for clinical diagnostic usage	Need for expensive equipment and reagents
		Low stability
Aptamer based diagnostic methods	Recognize wide range of targets	Difficulties for generating for some molecules such as small molecules
	High sensitivity and specificity	Problems toward commercialization
	High stability	Sensitivity to nuclease existed in serum and real samples
	Ease of use	Changes in affinity and specificity in real situations
	Ease of production	Low chemical diversity of natural oligonucleotide
	Low-cost
	Simple modification and labeling
	Compatibility with different diagnostic approaches