Purpose Currently, the most commonly used chelator for labelling antibodies with 89 Zr for immunoPET is desferrioxamine B (DFO). However, preclinical studies have shown that the limited in vivo stability of the 89 Zr-DFO complex results in release of 89 Zr, which accumulates in mineral bone. Here we report a novel chelator DFOcyclo*, a preorganized extended DFO derivative that enables octacoordination of the 89 Zr radiometal. The aim was to compare the in vitro and in vivo stability of [ 89 Zr]Zr-DFOcyclo*, [ 89 Zr]Zr-DFO* and [ 89 Zr]Zr-DFO. Methods The stability of 89 Zr-labelled chelators alone and after conjugation to trastuzumab was evaluated in human plasma and PBS, and in the presence of excess EDTA or DFO. The immunoreactive fraction, IC 50 , and internalization rate of the conjugates were evaluated using HER2-expressing SKOV-3 cells. The in vivo distribution was investigated in mice with subcutaneous HER2 + SKOV-3 or HER2 − MDA-MB-231 xenografts by PET/CT imaging and quantitative ex vivo tissue analyses 7 days after injection. Results 89 Zr-labelled DFO, DFO* and DFOcyclo* were stable in human plasma for up to 7 days. In competition with EDTA, DFO* and DFOcyclo* showed higher stability than DFO. In competition with excess DFO, DFOcyclo*-trastuzumab was significantly more stable than the corresponding DFO and DFO* conjugates ( p < 0.001). Cell binding and internalization were similar for the three conjugates. In in vivo studies, HER2 + SKOV-3 tumour-bearing mice showed significantly lower bone uptake ( p < 0.001) 168 h after injection with [ 89 Zr]Zr-DFOcyclo*-trastuzumab (femur 1.5 ± 0.3%ID/g, knee 2.1 ± 0.4%ID/g) or [ 89 Zr]Zr-DFO*-trastuzumab (femur 2.0 ± 0.3%ID/g, knee 2.68 ± 0.4%ID/g) than after injection with [ 89 Zr]Zr-DFO-trastuzumab (femur 4.5 ± 0.6%ID/g, knee 7.8 ± 0.6%ID/g). Blood levels, tumour uptake and uptake in other organs were not significantly different at 168 h after injection. HER2 − MDA-MB-231 tumour-bearing mice showed significantly lower tumour uptake ( p < 0.001) after injection with [ 89 Zr]Zr-DFOcyclo*-trastuzumab (16.2 ± 10.1%ID/g) and [ 89 Zr]Zr-DFO-trastuzumab (19.6 ± 3.2%ID/g) than HER2 + SKOV-3 tumour-bearing mice (72.1 ± 14.6%ID/g and 93.1 ± 20.9%ID/g, respectively), while bone uptake was similar. Conclusion 89 Zr-labelled DFOcyclo* and DFOcyclo*-trastuzumab...

Systemic chemotherapy is a primary strategy in the treatment of cancer, but comes with a number of limitations such as toxicity and unfavorable biodistribution. To overcome these issues, numerous targeting systems for specific delivery of chemotherapeutics to tumor cells have been designed and evaluated. Such strategies generally address subsets of tumor cells, still allowing the progressive growth of tumor cells not expressing the target. Moreover, tumor stem cells and tumor supportive cells, such as cancer associated fibroblasts and cancer associated macrophages, are left unaffected by this approach. In this review, we discuss an alternative targeting strategy aimed at delivery of anti-tumor drugs to the tumoral extracellular matrix with the potential to eliminate all cell types. The extracellular matrix of tumors is vastly different from that of healthy tissue and offers hooks for targeted drug delivery. It is concluded that matrix targeting is promising, but that clinical studies are required to evaluate translation.

Immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors demonstrates impressive improvements in the treatment of several types of cancer. Unfortunately, not all patients respond to therapy while severe immune-related adverse effects are prevalent. Currently, patient stratification is based on immunotherapy marker expression through immunohistochemical analysis on biopsied material. However, expression can be heterogeneous within and between tumor lesions, amplifying the sampling limitations of biopsies. Analysis of immunotherapy target expression by noninvasive quantitative molecular imaging with PET or SPECT may overcome this issue. In this review, an overview of tracers that have been developed for preclinical and clinical imaging of key immunotherapy targets, such as programmed cell death-1, programmed cell death ligand-1, IDO1 and cytotoxic T lymphocyteassociated antigen-4 is presented. We discuss important aspects to consider when developing such tracers and outline the future perspectives of molecular imaging of immunotherapy markers.

Because positron emission tomography (PET) and optical imaging are very complementary, the combination of these two imaging modalities is very enticing in the oncology field. Such bimodal imaging generally relies on imaging agents bearing two different imaging reporters. In the bioconjugation field, this is mainly performed by successive random conjugations of the two reporters on the protein vector, but these random conjugations can alter the vector properties. In this study, we aimed at abrogating the heterogeneity of the bimodal imaging immunoconjugate and mitigating the impact of multiple random. A trivalent platform bearing a DFO chelator for 89 Zr labeling, a NIR fluorophore -IRDye800CWand a bioconjugation handle was synthesized. This bimodal probe was site-specifically grafted to trastuzumab via glycan engineering. This new bimodal immunoconjugate was then investigated in terms of radiochemistry, in vitro and in vivo, and compared to the clinically relevant random equivalent. In vitro and in vivo, our strategy provides several improvements over the current clinical standard. The combination of site-specific conjugation with the monomolecular platform reduced the heterogeneity of the final immunoconjugate, improved the resistance of the fluorophore toward radiobleaching and reduced the non-specific uptake in the spleen and liver compared to the standard random immunoconjugate. To conclude, the strategy developed is very promising for the synthesis of better defined dual labeled immunoconjugates, although there is still room for improvement. Importantly, this conjugation strategy is highly modular and could be used for the synthesis of a wide range of dual labeled immunoconjugates.

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With the advent of novel immunotherapies, interest in ex vivo autologous cell labeling for in vivo cell tracking has revived. However, current clinically available labeling strategies have several drawbacks, such as release of radiolabel over time and cytotoxicity. Poly(lactic- co -glycolic acid) nanoparticles (PLGA NPs) are clinically used biodegradable carriers of contrast agents, with high loading capacity for multimodal imaging agents. Here we show the development of PLGA-based NPs for ex vivo cell labeling and in vivo cell tracking with SPECT. We used primary amine-modified PLGA polymers (PLGA-NH 2 ) to construct NPs similar to unmodified PLGA NPs. PLGA-NH 2 NPs were efficiently radiolabeled without chelator and retained the radionuclide for 2 weeks. Monocyte-derived dendritic cells labeled with [ 111 In]In-PLGA-NH 2 showed higher specific activity than those labeled with [ 111 In]In-oxine, with no negative effect on cell viability. SPECT/CT imaging showed that radiolabeled THP-1 cells accumulated at the Staphylococcus aureus infection site in mice. In conclusion, PLGA-NH 2 NPs are able to retain 111 In, independent of chelator presence. Furthermore, [ 111 In]In-PLGA-NH 2 allows cell labeling with high specific activity and no loss of activity over prolonged time intervals. Finally, in vivo tracking of ex vivo labeled THP-1 cells was demonstrated in an infection model using SPECT/CT imaging.

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a molecular imaging modality that enables non-invasive visualization of tracer distribution and pharmacology. Recently, peptides with long half-lives allowed once-a-week dosing of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonists with therapeutic applications in diabetes and obesity. PET imaging for such long-lived peptides is hindered by the typically used short-lived radionuclides. Zirconium-89 ( 89 Zr) emerged as a promising PET radionuclide with a sufficiently long half-life to be applied for biodistribution studies of long-circulating biomolecules. A comparison between the biodistribution profiles obtained via 89 Zr-PET and the current standard, quantitative whole-body autoradiography (QWBA), will be valuable for the development of novel peptide drugs. We determined the PET biodistribution of a 89 Zr-labeled acylated peptide agonist of GLP-1R and compared it to the profile obtained by QWBA using analogous tritiated tracers for up to 1 week after administration. The plasma metabolic profile was obtained and identification was done for the tritiated tracers. We found that, at early time points, the biodistribution profiles agreed between PET and QWBA. At the latertime points, the 89 Zr tracer remained primarily trapped in the kidneys. The introduction of desferrioxamine (DFO) chelator reduced the peptide stability, and UPLC-MS analysis identified a circulating metabolite arising from DFO hydrolysis. Kidney accumulation of radiolabeled peptides and DFO metabolic instability may compromise biodistribution studies using 89 Zr-PET to support the development of new biopharmaceuticals. PET and QWBA biodistribution data correlated well during the absorption phase, but new and more stable 89 Zr chelators are needed for a more accurate description of the elimination phase.

Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is used in drug development to noninvasively measure biodistribution and receptor occupancy. Ideally, PET tracers retain target binding and biodistribution properties of the investigated drug. Previously, we developed a zirconium-89 PET tracer based on a long-circulating glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) using desferrioxamine (DFO) as a chelator. Here, we aimed to develop an improved zirconium-89-labeled GLP-1RA with increased molar activity to increase the uptake in low receptor density tissues, such as brain. Furthermore, we aimed at reducing tracer accumulation in the kidneys. Introducing up to four additional Zr-DFOs resulted in higher molar activity and stability, while retaining potency. Branched placement of DFOs was especially beneficial. Tracers with either two or four DFOs had similar biodistribution as the tracer with one DFO in vivo, albeit increased kidney and liver uptake. Reduced kidney accumulation was achieved by introducing an enzymatically cleavable Met-Val-Lys (MVK) linker motif between the chelator and the peptide.