A 99mTc-labelled scFv antibody fragment that binds to prostate-specific membrane antigen

Saima Nawaz*, Gregory E.D. Mullen, Philip J. Blower, James R. Ballinger

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)
262 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is an extensively studied antigen for imaging prostate cancer. We prepared a single-chain variable fragment (scFv) of J591, a monoclonal antibody that recognises an external epitope of PSMA, incorporating a His-tag for labelling with Tc tricarbonyl, and evaluated its binding using human PCa cell lines. METHODS: J591(scFv) was expressed in HEK-293T cells and purified by metal ion affinity chromatography, followed by size exclusion chromatography. Stability and monomer/dimer ratios of purified scFv under different storage conditions were analysed by SDS-PAGE and analytical size exclusion chromatography. J591(scFv) was labelled with Tc(CO)3 at 37°C for 60 min. The stability of Tc-scFv in human serum was analysed by SDS-PAGE with autoradiography. Cell-binding studies were carried out using PC3LN3 (PSMA negative) and PC3LN3-PSMA (a variant engineered to express PSMA) cell lines. RESULTS: J591(scFv) was most stable to dimerisation on storage at −80°C compared with −20 and 4°C. Radiochemical yields of 85–90% were obtained with the final radiochemical purity of more than 99% after purification by gel filtration. In these small-scale studies, the maximum specific activity achieved was 7 MBq/μg. Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry showed the formation of Tc-J591(scFv), which was radiochemically stable in serum, with no dissociation of Tc over 24 h. Cell-binding assays showed specific binding to PSMA-positive cells. CONCLUSION: J591(scFv) can be radiolabelled with Tc(CO)3 conveniently and efficiently. The labelled product was stable in serum. It showed selective binding to PSMA-positive cells compared with PSMA-negative cells. This potential radiotracer warrants evaluation in PCa xenograft models.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CCBY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Original languageEnglish
JournalNuclear Medicine Communications
Early online date8 Jun 2017
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 8 Jun 2017

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