Improved Radiosynthesis and Biological Evaluations of L- and D-1-[18F]Fluoroethyl-Tryptophan for PET Imaging of IDO-Mediated Kynurenine Pathway of Tryptophan Metabolism.

Abstract

Tryptophan metabolism via indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO)-mediated kynurenine pathway plays a role in immunomodulation and has been emerging as a plausible target for cancer immunotherapy. Imaging IDO-mediated kynurenine pathway of tryptophan metabolism with positron emission tomography (PET) could provide valuable information for noninvasive assessment of cancer immunotherapy response. In this work, radiotracer 1-(2-[18F]fluoroethyl)-L-tryptophan (1-L-[18F]FETrp) and its enantioisomer 1-D-[18F]FETrp were synthesized and evaluated for PET imaging of IDO-mediated kynurenine pathway of tryptophan metabolism. Enantiopure 1-L-[18F]FETrp and 1-D-[18F]FETrp were prepared by a nucleophilic reaction of N-boc-1-(2-tosylethyl) tryptophan tert-butyl ester with [18F]Fluoride, followed by acid hydrolysis in a GE Tracerlab FX-N module. In vitro cell uptake assays were performed with a breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231. Small animal PET/computed tomography (CT) imaging was carried out in a mouse model bearing MDA-MB-231 xenografts. Automatic radiosynthesis of 1-L-[18F]FETrp and 1-D-[18F]FETrp was achieved by a one-pot two-step approach in 19.0±7.0 and 9.0±3.0% (n=3) decay-corrected yield with radiochemical purity over 99%, respectively. In vitro cell uptake study indicated the uptake of 1-D-[18F]FETrp in MDA-MB-231 cells was 0.73±0.07%/mg of protein at 60min, while, the corresponding uptake of 1-L-[18F]FETrp was 6.60±0.77%/mg. Further mechanistic assays revealed that amino acid transport systems L-tpye amino acid transporter (LAT) and alanine-, serine-, and cysteine-preferring (ASC), and enzyme IDO expression were involved in cell uptake of 1-L-[18F]FETrp. Small animal PET/CT imaging study showed the tumor uptake of 1-L-[18F]FETrp was 4.6±0.4% ID/g, while, the tumor uptake of 1-D-[18F]FETrp was low to 1.0±0.2% ID/g, which were confirmed by ex vivo biodistribution study. We have developed a practical method for the automatic radiosynthesis of 1-L-[18F]FETrp and 1-D-[18F]FETrp. Our biological evaluation results suggest that 1-L-[18F]FETrp is a promising radiotracer for PET imaging of IDO-mediated kynurenine pathway of tryptophan metabolism in cancer.