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A new 18F-labeled BBN-RGD peptide heterodimer with a symmetric linker for prostate cancer imaging

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Abstract

A peptide heterodimer comprises two different receptor-targeting peptide ligands. Molecular imaging probes based on dual-receptor targeting peptide heterodimers exhibit improved tumor targeting efficacy for multi-receptor expressing tumors compared with their parent single-receptor targeting peptide monomers. Previously we have developed bombesin (BBN)-RGD (Arg-Gly-Asp) peptide heterodimers, in which BBN and RGD are covalently connected with an asymmetric glutamate linker (J Med Chem 52:425–432, 2009). Although 18F-labeled heterodimers showed significantly better microPET imaging quality than 18F-labeled RGD and BBN monomers in a PC-3 xenograft model which co-expresses gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPR) and integrin αvβ3, tedious heterodimer synthesis due to the asymmetric nature of glutamate linker restricts their clinical applications. In this study, we report the use of a symmetric linker AEADP [AEADP = 3,3′-(2-aminoethylazanediyl)dipropanoic acid] for the synthesis of BBN-RGD peptide heterodimer. The 18F-labeled heterodimer (18F-FB-AEADP-BBN-RGD) showed comparable microPET imaging results with glutamate linked BBN-RGD heterodimers, indicating that the replacement of glutamate linker with AEADP linker did not affect the biological activities of BBN-RGD heterodimer. The heterodimer synthesis is rather easy and straightforward. Because tumors often co-express multiple receptors, the use of a symmetric linker provides a general method of fast assembly of various peptide heterodimers for imaging multi-receptor expressing tumors.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) grants R01 CA119053, P50 CA114747, and U54 CA119367) and the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), National Institutes of Health (NIH).

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Correspondence to Xiaoyuan Chen.

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Y. Yan and K. Chen have contributed equally in this work.

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Yan, Y., Chen, K., Yang, M. et al. A new 18F-labeled BBN-RGD peptide heterodimer with a symmetric linker for prostate cancer imaging. Amino Acids 41, 439–447 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-010-0762-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-010-0762-5

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