Background:
Breast cancer is a malignant disease with high mortality rate among women in the
world. It is necessary to diagnose breast cancer at the early stage before it metastasizes in patients.
Objective:
The aim of this study is the evaluation of 99mTc-(tricine)-HYNIC-Lys-FROP for breast tumor
imaging.
Method:
Lys-FROP peptide was labeled with 99mTc using HYNIC as chelator and tricine as co-ligand. Specific
binding of this radiolabeled peptide on breast cancerous cell was assessed in different cell lines as well as in
tumor-bearing mice.
Results:
HYNIC-Lys-FROP peptide was labeled with 99mTc at radiochemical purity more than 99%. It was
observed high stability in normal saline and serum about 95%. The highest cellular uptake was observed in
MCF-7 breast tumor cells treated with 99mTc-(tricine)-HYNIC-Lys-FROP as compared to other cell lines (lung,
ovarian, T47D breast cancer cell lines). Biodistribution results in female MCF-7 tumor-bearing mice showed the
relatively high tumor uptake and tumor-muscle ratio as 3.82 ± 0.66 after 15 min post-injection of 99mTc-(tricine)-
HYNIC-Lys-FROP. Tumor uptake was reduced in mice that were co-injected with excess of unlabeled peptide
to be 0.91 ± 0.08.
Conclusion:
Findings showed this radiolabeled peptide is a promising candidate for tumor targeting and molecular
imaging of breast cancer.
99mTc-HYNIC-(tricine/EDDA)-FROP peptide for MCF-7 breast tumor targeting and imaging
