A comparison of cleavable and noncleavable hydrazinopyridine linkers for the Tc-99m labeling of Fab' monoclonal antibody fragments

The design and synthesis of hydrazinopyridine bifunctional chelating agents (BCA's) featuring amide, ester, and disulfide groups are described. The BCA's site-specifically react with the free thiol groups of the tumor-specific monoclonal antibody fragment C46.3 using a one-pot in situ reduction and conjugation procedure from the F(ab')(2) to give Fab'-linker conjugates. Molar substitution ratios (MSR's) of the hydrazinopyridine conjugates were comparable to the theoretical (maximum) number of thiols per fragment determined by free hydrazine and residual thiol assays. The series of C46.3 Fab'-linker conjugates were Tc-99m-labeled in greater than 95% radiochemical purity by incubation with Tc-99m-tricine for 1 h at room temperature. In order to evaluate the conjugates for radiopharmaceutical applications, the tumor localization and biodistribution properties of the radiolabeled Fab'-linker conjugates, compared to the direct labeled fragment, were tested in nude mice bearing LS174T xenografts. Depending upon the structure of the Linker connecting the radiolabeled hydrazinopyridine group to the antibody fragment, we observed a variation in kidney uptake and whole-body clearance. Diester- and monoester-linked conjugates exhibited lower kidney uptake and faster whole-body clearance than the corresponding linker containing amide groups. This result may be interpreted as evidence for rapid metabolism of ester compared to amide groups in the kidney following uptake. At 24-h postinjection, the monoester-linked conjugate Tc-99m-C46.3 Fab'-BA displayed the highest tumor: blood ratio (16.2) compared to the directly labeled conjugate (6.6) and is therefore a potential clinical candidate for imaging breast and ovarian cancer.