A New Solid Target Design for the Production of Zr and Radiosynthesis of High Molar Activity [Zr]Zr-DBN

Overview

Journal Am J Nucl Med Mol Imaging

Date 2022 Mar 17

PMID 35295887

Authors

Mukesh K Pandey

Aditya Bansal

Jason R Ellinghuysen

Daniel J Vail

Heather M Berg

Timothy R DeGrado

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Due to the advent of various biologics like antibodies, proteins, cells, viruses, and extracellular vesicles as biomarkers for disease diagnosis, progression, and as therapeutics, there exists a need to have a simple and ready to use radiolabeling synthon to enable noninvasive imaging trafficking studies. Previously, we reported [Zr]zirconium--isothiocyanatobenzyl-desferrioxamine ([Zr]Zr-DBN) as a synthon for the radiolabeling of biologics to allow PET imaging of cell trafficking. In this study, we focused on improving the molar activity (A) of [Zr]Zr-DBN, by enhancing Zr production on a low-energy cyclotron and developing a new reverse phase HPLC method to purify [Zr]Zr-DBN. To enhance Zr production, a new solid target was designed, and production yield was optimized by varying, thickness of yttrium foil, beam current, irradiation duration and proton beam energy. After optimization, 4.78±0.33 GBq (129.3±8.9 mCi) of Zr was produced at 40 µA for 180 min (3 h) proton irradiation decay corrected to the end of bombardment with a saturation yield of 4.56±0.31 MBq/µA. Additionally, after reverse phase HPLC purification the molar activity of [Zr]Zr-DBN was found to be in 165-316 GBq/µmol range. The high molar activity of [Zr]Zr-DBN also allowed radiolabeling of low concentration of proteins in relatively higher yield. The stability of [Zr]Zr-DBN was measured over time with and without the presence of ascorbic acid. The newly designed solid target assembly and HPLC method of [Zr]Zr-DBN purification can be adopted in the routine production of Zr and [Zr]Zr-DBN, respectively.

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