T Uehara, Y Arano, M Ono, Y Fujioka, K Ogawa, S Namba, M Nakayama, M Koizumi, N Fujii, K Horiuchi, A Yokoyama, H Saji
NUCLEAR MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY 26(8) 883-890 1999年11月
Recent development of a variety of thiol free chelating agents has facilitated the design of Tc-99m-labered somatostatin analogs suitable for receptor imaging of somatostatin-positive tumors. However, it remains ambiguous whether the disulfide bonds in cyclic peptides are stable during Tc-99m complexation reactions, and contradictory results have been reported regarding the integrity of disulfide bonds in cyclic somatostatin analogs. To estimate the stability of the disulfide bond in a synthetic somatostatin analog at low peptide concentrations, [I-125]I-RC 160, in which radioiodine was incorporated into the 3-Tyr residue, was synthesized and the integrity of the disulfide bond of the peptide was investigated in the presence of reducing agents such as ascorbic acid, dithionite, and stannous ions. The disulfide bond in [I-125]I-RC-160 remained stable in the presence of ascorbic acid in boiling water. The disulfide bond was also stable when treated with stannous ions at concentrations sufficient to reduce Tc-99m for complexation with a thiol free chelating agent, bis(hydroxamamide) analog when the Tc-99m complexation reaction was performed at room temperature. However, the disulfide bond of [I-125]I-RC-160 was slightly cleaved in the presence of a small amount of stannous ions when the reaction was performed in boiling water. Treatment of [I-125]I-RC-160 with dithionite in boiling water markedly reduced the disulfide bond of the parental peptide. These findings indicated that synthetic somatostatin analogs may be labeled with Tc-99m with stannous ions as the reducing agent without impairing their structure after conjugation of thiol free chelating agents that provide Tc-99m chelates under mild reaction conditions. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Tnc, All rights reserved.