Small-Animal PET Imaging of Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Positive Tumor with a 64Cu Labeled Affibody Protein

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) has become an attractive target for cancer molecular imaging and therapy. Affibody proteins against EGFR have been reported, and thus, we were interested in evaluating their potential for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of EGFR positive cancer. An Affibody analogue (Ac-Cys-Z(EGFR:1907)) binding to EGFR was made through conventional solid phase peptide synthesis. The purified protein was site-specifically coupled with the 1,4,7-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7-tris-aceticacid-10-maleimid-ethylacetamide (maleimido-mono-amide-DOTA) to produce the bioconjugate, DOTA-Z(EGFR:1907). Cu-64 labeled probe Cu-64-DOTA-Z(EGFR:1907) displayed a moderate specific activity (5-8 MBq/nmol, 22-35 mu Ci/mu g). Cell uptake assays by pre-incubating without or with 300 times excess unlabeled Ac-Cys-Z(EGFR:1907) showed high EGFR-specific uptake (20% applied activity at 0.5 h) in A431 epidermoid carcinoma cancer cells. The affinity (K-D) of Cu-64-DOTA-Z(EGFR:1907) as tested by cell saturation analysis was 20 nM. The serum stability test showed excellent stability of the probe with >95% intact after 4 h of incubation in mouse serum. In vivo small-animal PET imaging showed fast tumor targeting, high tumor accumulation (similar to 10% ID/g at 1 h p.i.), and good tumor-to-normal tissue contrast of Cu-64-DOTA-Z(EGFR:1907) spiked with a wide dose range of Ac-Cys-Z(EGFR:1907). Bio-distribution studies further demonstrated that the probe had high tumor, blood, liver, and kidney uptakes, while blood radioactivity concentration dropped dramatically at increased spiking doses. Co-injection of the probe with 500 mu g of Ac-Cys-Z(EGFR:1907) for blocking significantly reduced the tumor uptake. Thus. Cu-64-DOTA-Z(EGFR:1907) showed potential as a high tumor contrast EGFR PET imaging reagent. The probe spiked with 50 mu g of Ac-Cys-Z(EGFR:1907) improved tumor imaging contrast which may have important clinical applications.