Oroujeni Maryam, Xu Tianqi, Gagnon Katherine, Rinne Sara S, Weis Jan, Garousi Javad, Andersson Ken G, Löfblom John, Orlova Anna, Tolmachev Vladimir
Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University, 75185 Uppsala, Sweden.
GE Healthcare, GEMS PET Systems, 75015 Uppsala, Sweden.
Pharmaceutics. 2021 Feb 23;13(2):292. doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics13020292.
Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is overexpressed in many malignancies. EGFR-targeted therapy extends survival of patients with disseminated cancers. Radionuclide molecular imaging of EGFR expression would make EGFR-directed treatment more personalized and therefore more efficient. A previous study demonstrated that affibody molecule [Ga]Ga-DFO-ZEGFR:2377 permits specific positron-emission tomography (PET) imaging of EGFR expression in xenografts at 3 h after injection. We anticipated that imaging at 24 h after injection would provide higher contrast, but this is prevented by the short half-life of Ga (67.6 min). Here, we therefore tested the hypothesis that the use of the non-conventional long-lived positron emitter Ga (T = 9.49 h, β = 56.5%) would permit imaging with higher contrast. Ga was produced by the Zn(p,n)Ga nuclear reaction and DFO-ZEGFR:2377 was efficiently labelled with Ga with preserved binding specificity in vitro and in vivo. At 24 h after injection, [Ga]Ga-DFO-ZEGFR:2377 provided 3.9-fold higher tumor-to-blood ratio and 2.3-fold higher tumor-to-liver ratio than [Ga]Ga-DFO-ZEGFR:2377 at 3 h after injection. At the same time point, [Ga]Ga-DFO-ZEGFR:2377 provided 1.8-fold higher tumor-to-blood ratio, 3-fold higher tumor-to-liver ratio, 1.9-fold higher tumor-to-muscle ratio and 2.3-fold higher tumor-to-bone ratio than [Zr]Zr-DFO-ZEGFR:2377. Biodistribution data were confirmed by whole body PET combined with magnetic resonance imaging (PET/MRI). The use of the positron emitter Ga for labelling of DFO-ZEGFR:2377 permits PET imaging of EGFR expression at 24 h after injection and improves imaging contrast.
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