Synthesis and Evaluation of <sup>99m</sup>Tc-Labeled PSMA-Targeted Tracers Based on the Lys-Urea-Aad Pharmacophore for Detecting Prostate Cancer with Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography

oleh: Kelly Lu, Chengcheng Zhang, Zhengxing Zhang, Hsiou-Ting Kuo, Nadine Colpo, François Bénard, Kuo-Shyan Lin

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2023-06-01

Deskripsi

Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is a well-validated prostate cancer marker but reported PSMA-targeted tracers derived from the Lys-urea-Glu pharmacophore including the clinically validated [<sup>99m</sup>Tc]Tc-EDDA/HYNIC-iPSMA have high off-target uptake in kidneys, spleen, and salivary glands. In this study, we synthesized and evaluated three novel <sup>99m</sup>Tc-labeled PSMA-targeted tracers and investigated if the tracers derived from the Lys-urea-Aad pharmacophore could have minimized uptake in off-target organs/tissues. In vitro competition binding assays showed that compared with HYNIC-iPSMA, the three novel ligands had slightly weaker PSMA binding affinity (average K<sub>i</sub> = 3.11 vs. 8.96–11.6 nM). Imaging and ex vivo biodistribution studies in LNCaP tumor-bearing mice showed that [<sup>99m</sup>Tc]Tc-EDDA/HYNIC-iPSMA and the three novel tracers successfully visualized LNCaP tumor xenografts in SPECT images and were excreted mainly via the renal pathway. The average tumor uptake at 1 h post-injection varied from 5.40 to 18.8%ID/g, and the tracers derived from the Lys-urea-Aad pharmacophore had much lower uptake in the spleen and salivary glands. Compared with the clinical tracer [<sup>99m</sup>Tc]Tc-EDDA/HYNIC-iPSMA, the Lys-urea-Aad-derived [<sup>99m</sup>Tc]Tc-EDDA-KL01127 had lower background uptake and superior tumor-to-background contrast ratios and is therefore promising for clinical translation to detect prostate cancer lesions with SPECT.