Abstract
Invited for this month's cover picture is the group of Dr. Yann Seimbille at the Life Sciences Division at TRIUMF (Canada). The cover picture shows how a simple and innovative methodology based on the bioorthogonal click reaction between 2‐cyanobenzothiazole and 1,2‐aminothiol has been elaborated to facilitate the labeling of peptide biovectors. Read the full text of their Communication at 10.1002/open.201700191.
In one phrase, how would you describe your research?
Peptides are attractive candidates for use as diagnostic agents, owing to their specificity and excellent pharmacokinetic profiles. Over the last decade, we have devoted our efforts to the development of peptide‐based imaging agents for positron emission tomography. Radiolabeling of biovectors is challenging and, therefore, we were seeking for an ideal and universal labeling methodology. Most of positron‐emitting radionuclides (such as 18F; 68Ga) have a short half‐life and biomolecules are often fragile, hampering the use of sophisticated and harsh chemical reactions. A rapid, regioselective, and biocompatible incorporation of an imaging probe into the targeting vector is desired. Thus, we envisioned to develop a labeling methodology in which peptides are functionalized with a clickable handle at an early synthetic stage and then labeled with an imaging probe (i.e. a radionuclide or a fluorogenic dye) by luciferin adduct formation.
What is the most significant result of this study?
We demonstrated that 2‐cyanobenzothiazole‐bearing imaging reagents react rapidly and specifically with peptides containing a 1,2‐aminothiol moiety under various conditions, even in complex biological medium. This result not only showed the applicability of our strategy to the labeling of peptides, but also shed light on other potential direction, such as the preparation of theranostic agents and pre‐targeting applications in biological systems.
What was the inspiration for this cover design?
A Chinese idiom said that “push a boat along with favorable current”. The meaning behinds this idiom is that if we do things in the right direction, it will take little effort to achieve our goal. We herein described a simple and efficient strategy for the preparation of labeled peptides, and expected that it will help broaden the applicability of peptides as therapeutics or imaging agents in the future.
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the Leenaards Foundation (grant # 3699) and NSERC for financial support. We thank the Chemistry department at the University of British Columbia for providing support and resources. We would like to thank the Life Sciences team at TRIUMF for technical assistance.
K.-T. Chen, C. Ieritano, Y. Seimbille, ChemistryOpen 2018, 7, 214.