Orthogonally Protected
Artificial Amino Acid as Tripod
Ligand for Automated Peptide Synthesis and Labeling with [<sup>99m</sup>Tc(OH<sub>2</sub>)<sub>3</sub>(CO)<sub>3</sub>]<sup>+</sup>
- Publication date
- Publisher
Abstract
1,2-Diamino-propionic acid (Dap) is a very strong chelator
for
the [<sup>99m</sup>Tc(CO)<sub>3</sub>]<sup>+</sup> core, yielding
small and hydrophilic complexes. We prepared the lysine based Dap
derivative l-Lys(Dap) in which the ε-NH<sub>2</sub> group was replaced by the tripod through conjugation to its α-carbon.
The synthetic strategy produced an orthogonally protected bifunctional
chelator (BFC). The -NH<sub>2</sub> group of the α-amino acid
portion is Fmoc- and the -NH<sub>2</sub> of Dap are Boc-protected.
Fmoc-l-Lys(Dap(Boc)) was either conjugated to the N- and
C-terminus of bombesin BBN(7–14) or integrated into the sequence
using solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS). We also replaced the native
lysine in a cyclic RGD peptide with l-Lys(Dap). For all peptides,
quantitative labeling with the [<sup>99m</sup>Tc(CO)<sub>3</sub>]<sup>+</sup> core at a 10 μM concentration in PBS buffer (pH = 7.4)
was achieved. For comparison, the rhenium homologues were prepared
from [Re(OH<sub>2</sub>)<sub>3</sub>(CO)<sub>3</sub>]<sup>+</sup> and
Lys(Dap)-BBN(7–14) or cyclo-(RGDyK(Dap)), respectively. Determination
of integrin receptor binding showed low to medium nanomolar affinities
for various receptor subtypes. The IC<sub>50</sub> of cyclo-(RGDyK(Dap[Re(CO)<sub>3</sub>])) for α<sub>v</sub>β<sub>3</sub> is 7.1 nM as
compared to 3.1 nM for nonligated RGD derivative. Biodistribution
studies in M21 melanoma bearing nude mice showed reasonable α<sub>v</sub>β<sub>3</sub>-integrin specific tumor uptake. Altogether,
orthogonally protected l-Lys(Dap) represents a highly versatile
building block for integration in any peptide sequence. Lys(Dap)-precursors
allow high-yield <sup>99m</sup>Tc-labeling with [<sup>99m</sup>Tc(OH<sub>2</sub>)<sub>3</sub>(CO)<sub>3</sub>]<sup>+</sup>, forming small
and hydrophilic complexes, which in turn leads to peptide radiopharmaceuticals
with excellent in vivo characteristics