PAGE-based Purification of Aptamers. MinE07-Biotin, MinE07-U-Ph-Biotin, MinE07-U-Vi-Biotin and MinE07-U-I-Biotin aptamers required purification by Poly Acrylamide Gel Electrophoresis (PAGE). A 1.5 mm 15% denaturing PAGE gel was produced by diluting 37.5 mL of 20% acrylamide denaturing stock solution with 12.5 mL of 1 x TBE buffer. To this 50 µL of TEMED and 130 µL of 40% APS stock solution were added to induce polymerisation. The gel was poured between two glass plates and a 1.5 mm comb was inserted. The comb was removed after casting and the well washed with TBE buffer. The gel was pre-run at 300 V for 1 hour before the sample was loaded. The aptamers with 8 M urea were loaded onto the gel and run at 250 V for half an hour before being run for a further 1.5 hours at 300 V. The gel was removed from the glass plates and placed onto cling film, which was then placed onto a silica TLC plate; the gel was illuminated with UV light to visualise each aptamer. The aptamer band was cut out of the bulk gel and placed into a 15 mL falcon tube. The gel was homogenised, and 10 mL of autoclaved water was added. The solution was mixed and rapidly frozen in liquid nitrogen before being incubated overnight at 60 °C in a water bath. The solution was split into two equal portions and centrifuged for five minutes, the supernatants were collected, and the pellet extracted using a pipette with 2 mL autoclaved water. This was repeated three times. The supernatants were dried by centrifugal vacuum concentration at 60 °C for five hours and the pellets were re-suspended in autoclaved water.