development-68gallium-labeled-d-peptide-pet-tracer-for-imaging

Development of a <sup>68</sup>Gallium-Labeled D-Peptide PET Tracer for Imaging Programmed Death-Ligand 1 Expression

The development of immune checkpoint blockade therapy based on programmed cell death-protein 1 (PD-1)/programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) has revolutionized ...

Huazhong University of Science and Technology

We report a facile thiol-yne type reaction triggered by the sulfonium center. After facile propargylation of thiolethers, the resulting sulfonium could undergo facile addition with thiols in aqueous media at ambient temperature. Further applying this reaction in unprotected peptides bearing neighboring methionine and cysteine could enable a facile intramolecular addition to construct cyclic peptides with better stability, good glutathione resistance, and increased cellular uptakes. Also, the propargylated sulfonium may be used as robust and versatile probes to target cysteines containing biomolecules.

A Sulfonium Triggered Thiol-yne Reaction for Cysteine Modification.

Anti-apoptotic B cell lymphoma 2 (BCL-2) family proteins are proven targets for human cancers. Targeting the BH3-binding pockets of these anti-apoptotic proteins could reactivate apoptosis in BCL-2-depedent cancers. BFL-1 is a BCL-2 family protein overexpressed in various chemoresistant cancers. A unique cysteine at the binding interface of the BH3 and BFL-1 was previously proven to be an intriguing targeting site to irreversibly inhibit BFL-1 functions with stabilized cyclic peptide bearing a covalent warhead. Recently, we developed a sulfonium-tethered peptide cyclization strategy to construct peptide ligands that could selectively and efficiently react with the cysteine(s) of target proteins near the interacting interface. Using this method, we constructed a BFL-1 peptide inhibitor, B4-MC, that could selectively conjugate with BFL-1 both in vitro and in cell. B4-MC showed good cellular uptake, colocalized with BFL-1 on mitochondria, and showed obvious growth inhibition of BFL-1 over-expressed cancer cell lines.

Selective Covalent Targeting of Anti-apoptotic BFL-1 by a Sulfonium-Tethered Peptide.

Fangcang Hospitals (cabin hospitals) played a key role in isolation and control of the infection sources during COVID-19 epidemic. Many patients at Fangcang Hospitals had complications or mental stress. As the doctors, nurses and paramedics presented in the emergency, there was a growing demand for clinical pharmacists to provide pharmaceutical care for the affected patients with chronic diseases via telemedicine.

Evaluation of the role and usefulness of clinical pharmacists at the Fangcang Hospital during COVID-19 outbreak.

Malignant ascites is a manifestation of end stage events in a variety of cancers and is associated with significant morbidity. Epigenetic modulators play a key role in cancer initiation and progression, among which histone deacetylases (HDACs) are considered as one of the most important regulators for various cancer development, such as liver cancer, ovarian cancer, and pancreatic cancer et al. Thus, in this paper, we sought to explore the therapeutic effect of HDAC inhibitor on malignant ascites.

MS275 as Class I HDAC inhibitor displayed therapeutic potential on malignant ascites by iTRAQ-based quantitative proteomic analysis.

Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) has become the preferred therapy for unresectable advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the embolization of tumor-feeding arteries by TACE always leads to hypoxia-related tumor angiogenesis, which limited the therapeutic effect for HCC. In this paper, we used a VEGFR targeting peptide VEGF125 - 136 (QKRKRKKSRYKS) to conjugate with a lytic peptide (KLUKLUKKLUKLUK) to form a peptide-drug conjugate (PDC). We used cell affinity assay to detect the peptide binding ability to VEGFR highly expressed cell lines, and CCK8, cell apoptosis to confirm the cellular toxicity for different cell lines. Meanwhile, we created a VX2 tumor-bearing rabbit model to assess the in vivo anti-tumor effect of the peptide conjugate in combination with TAE. HE staining was used to verify the in vivo safety of the peptide conjugate. IHC was used to assess the anti-angiogenesis and cell toxicity of the peptide conjugate in tumor tissues. The peptide conjugate could not only target VEGFR in cell surface and inhibit VEGFR function, but also have potent anti-cancer effect. We luckily found the peptide conjugate showed potent cytotoxicity for liver cancer cell Huh7 (IC50 7.3 ± 0.74 μM) and endothelial cell HUVEC (IC50 10.7 ± 0.292 μM) and induced cell apoptosis of these two cell lines. We also found the peptide conjugate inhibited cell migration of HUVEC through wound healing assay. Besides, these peptides also showed better in vivo anti-tumor effect than traditional drug DOX through TACE in VX2 rabbit tumor model, and efficiently inhibit angiogenesis in tumor tissues with good safety. In conclusion, our work may provide an alternative option for clinical HCC therapy via TACE combination.

A VEGFR targeting peptide-drug conjugate (PDC) suppresses tumor angiogenesis in a TACE model for hepatocellular carcinoma therapy.

Nucleic acid therapy is attracting great attention in diverse clinical translations because of its therapeutic advantages. As a renowned oligonucleotide therapeutical candidate in the clinical stage, AS1411 has shown outstanding tumor suppressing effects; however, its efficient delivery to the cell nucleus is critical for its anticancer effect. Herein, we identified a multifunctional peptide drug conjugate (PDC) as a safe and efficient carrier to achieve the nuclear delivery of AS1411. This PDC consists of the cell penetration peptide RW9, an HDAC inhibitor warhead (peptide C-terminus), and 5-FU (peptide N-terminus), which can coassemble with AS1411 to form nanospheres. The PDC efficiently delivered AS1411 to the nucleus of several types of cancer cells. Moreover, it reversed the stemness of a cancer stem-like cell line. Significantly, due to the assembly-induced accumulation enhancement and retention, a safe single agent concentration of PDC showed unexpected synergy with AS1411 to augment the cancer cell suppression efficiency, exemplified by the downregulation of the stemness-related proteins and the upregulation of apoptosis-related proteins. Therefore, our work presents a powerful strategy for the nuclear delivery of nucleic acid drugs by leveraging cancer-suppressing PDC as assembly inducers, which provides a powerful combination regimen in treating cancer stem-like cells.

An assembly-inducing PDC enabling the efficient nuclear delivery of nucleic acid for cancer stem-like cell suppression.

Immunotherapy has revolutionized the field of cancer therapy. Nanomaterials can further improve the efficacy and safety of immunotherapy because of their tunability and multifunctionality. Owing to their natural biocompatibility, diverse designs, and dynamic self-assembly, peptide-based nanomaterials hold great potential as immunotherapeutic agents for many malignant cancers, with good immune response and safety. Over the past several decades, peptides have been developed as tumor antigens, effective antigen delivery carriers, and self-assembling adjuvants for cancer immunotherapy. In this review, we give a brief introduction to the use of peptide-based nanomaterials for cancer immunotherapy as antigens, carriers, and adjuvants, and to their current clinical applications. Overall, this review can facilitate further understanding of peptide-based nanomaterials for cancer immunotherapy and may pave the way for designing safe and efficient methods for future vaccines or immunotherapies.

Article	Year
A Sulfonium Triggered Thiol-yne Reaction for Cysteine Modification. The Journal of organic chemistry\| PubMed ID: 31899633
Selective Covalent Targeting of Anti-apoptotic BFL-1 by a Sulfonium-Tethered Peptide. Chembiochem : a European journal of chemical biology\| PubMed ID: 32790056
Evaluation of the role and usefulness of clinical pharmacists at the Fangcang Hospital during COVID-19 outbreak. International journal of clinical practice\| PubMed ID: 33894041
MS275 as Class I HDAC inhibitor displayed therapeutic potential on malignant ascites by iTRAQ-based quantitative proteomic analysis. BMC gastroenterology\| PubMed ID: 35062876
A VEGFR targeting peptide-drug conjugate (PDC) suppresses tumor angiogenesis in a TACE model for hepatocellular carcinoma therapy. Cell death discovery\| PubMed ID: 36202781	2022
An assembly-inducing PDC enabling the efficient nuclear delivery of nucleic acid for cancer stem-like cell suppression. Nanoscale\| PubMed ID: 36218134	2022
From design to clinic: Engineered peptide nanomaterials for cancer immunotherapy. Frontiers in chemistry\| PubMed ID: 36733612	2022

Dongyuan Wang

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