Radiolabeled Dendrimers for Nuclear Medicine Applications

Abstract

Recent advances in nuclear medicine have explored nanoscale carriers for targeted delivery of various radionuclides in specific manners to improve the effect of diagnosis and therapy of diseases. Due to the unique molecular architecture allowing facile attachment of targeting ligands and radionuclides, dendrimers provide versatile platforms in this filed to build abundant multifunctional radiolabeled nanoparticles for nuclear medicine applications. This review gives special focus to recent advances in dendrimer-based nuclear medicine agents for the imaging and treatment of cancer, cardiovascular and other diseases. Radiolabeling strategies for different radionuclides and several challenges involved in clinical translation of radiolabeled dendrimers are extensively discussed.

Chlorotoxin peptide-functionalized polyethylenimine-entrapped gold nanoparticles for glioma SPECT/CT imaging and radionuclide therapy

“…Nanoplatforms are capable of precise diagnosis, drug delivery, and therapy monitoring through integrating diagnostic and therapeutic functions [15–18]. For example, the development of various radionuclide labeled nanoparticles combined with other imaging modalities or treatment techniques, could make them appropriate for a wider variety of applications [19–21]. To date, various methods have been adopted for engineering BBB-penetrating nanoparticle-based theranostic systems for glioma imaging and therapy [22–26].…”

SPECT/CT imaging of chemotherapy-induced tumor apoptosis using 99mTc-labeled dendrimer-entrapped gold nanoparticles

“…Nanotechnology offers great advantages to construct various contrast agents for different imaging modalities, in particular radionuclide-labeled nanoparticles (NPs) for molecular imaging (Xing et al., 2014 ; Li et al., 2016 ; Wang et al., 2017 ; Zhou et al., 2018 ). It is worth noting that dendrimers can effectively load different kinds of radionuclides and other imaging moieties for hybrid imaging such as PET/CT and SPECT/CT, due to its unique features including precise molecular structures, multiple surface functional groups, convenient surface modifications, and excellent biocompatibility (Zhao et al., 2017 ). In the construction of dendrimer-based nanoprobes for SPECT/CT imaging, it is required to label SPECT radionuclides within the NP system.…”

PAMAM Dendrimer‐Based Nanodevices for Nuclear Medicine Applications

“…One convenient way to construct radiolabeled dendrimer‐based theranostic nanoplatform is to use a radionuclide having both imaging and therapeutic functionality to label dendrimer scaffold. Various types of radioisotopes, such as 131 I, 188 Re, and 177 Lu, have been reported to be used for both SPECT imaging and RT . For example, 131 I is a radionuclide commonly used in clinical theranostics due to the γ‐ray emission (364 keV) for SPECT imaging and β‐ray emission (606 keV) for RT.…”

“…After 99m Tc chelation, the sequential cardiac micro‐SPECT/CT images were successfully acquired, providing colocalization information of nuclear and X‐ray contrast in the heart areas. Apart from iodinated CT contrast agents, some metal NPs with high atomic number and electronic density, such as gold (Au), bismuth (Bi), and ytterbium (Yb), have been extensively investigated as potential CT contrast agents.…”