A Four-Arm Star-Shaped Poly(ethylene glycol) (StarPEG) Platform for Bombesin Peptide Delivery to Gastrin-Releasing Peptide Receptors in Prostate Cancer

作者:Xu, Yingding; Huang, Wei; Ren, Gang; Qi, Shibo; Jiang, Han; Miao, Zheng; Liu, Hongguang; Lucente, Ermelinda; Bu, Lihong; Shen, Baozhong; Barron, Annelise; Cheng, Zhen*
来源:ACS Macro Letters, 2012, 1(6): 753-757.
DOI:10.1021/mz300105n

摘要

We present the design, synthesis, and characterization of a novel cancer biomarker delivery platform, the star-shaped four-arm poly(ethylene glycol) (StarPEG). Using the multidisplay platform we were able to synthesize a bombesin (BBN) positron emission tomography (PET) probe featuring four copies of 8-Aoc-BBN peptides (where 8-Aoc is 8-aminooctanic acid), which we named StarPEG-BBN. Cell binding studies showed that StarPEG-BBN had a good binding affinity to PC3 cells (IC50 = 65.3 +/- 3.4 nM). Cell uptake studies showed that the binding was specific (blocking vs no-blocking, P < 0.05). Mice were then implanted with PC3 cells and divided into two groups, one injected with Cu-64-StarPEG-BBN and the other 250 mu g of unlabeled 8-Aoc-BBN along with Cu-64-StarPEG-BBN. In vivo images revealed that StarPEG-BBN had good tumor uptake (4.2 +/- 0.4% ID/g at 4 h post-injection (p.i.)) and was significantly blocked by coinjection of unlabeled 8-Aoc-BBN at 4 h p.i. (P = 0.003). The small animal PET quantification was further verified by the biodistribution study at 24 h p.i. Our study demonstrated that the novel four-arm PEG platform StarPEG as a cancer biomarker multimerization/delivery platform conserves binding specificity, improves drug loading, is capable of achieving good tumor uptake, and has great potential in cancer treatment and molecular imaging.