摘要：Radionuclide molecular imaging of HER2 expression in disseminated cancer enables stratification of patients for HER2-targeted therapies. DARPin G3, a small (14 kDa) engineered scaffold protein, is a promising probe for imaging of HER2. We hypothesized that position (C- or N-terminus) and composition (hexahistidine or (HE) 3 ) of histidine-containing tags would influence the biodistribution of [ 99m Tc]Tc(CO) 3 -labeled DARPin G3. To test the hypothesis, G3 variants containing tags at N-terminus (H 6 -G3 and (HE) 3 -G3) or at C-terminus (G3-H 6 and G3-(HE) 3 ) were labeled with [ 99m Tc]Tc(CO) 3 . Labeling yield, label stability, specificity and affinity of the binding to HER2, biodistribution and tumor targeting properties of these variants were compared side-by-side. There was no substantial influence of position and composition of the tags on binding of [ 99m Tc]Tc(CO) 3 -labeled variants to HER2. The specificity of HER2 targeting in vivo was confirmed. The tumor uptake in BALB/c nu/nu mice bearing SKOV3 xenografts was similar for all variants. On the opposite, there was a strong influence of the tags on uptake in normal tissues. The tumor-to-liver ratio for [ 99m Tc]Tc(CO) 3 -(HE) 3 -G3 was three-fold higher compared to the hexahistidine-tag containing variants. Overall, [ 99m Tc]Tc(CO) 3 -(HE) 3 -G3 variant provided the highest tumor-to-lung, tumor-to-liver, tumor-to-bone and tumor-to-muscle ratios, which should improve sensitivity of HER2 imaging in these common metastatic sites.
