Suchergebnisse

The development of tools for the early diagnosis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma is an urgent need in order to increase treatment success rate and reduce patient mortality. Here, we present a modular nanosystem platform integrating soft nanoparticles with a targeting peptide and an active imaging agent for diagnostics. Biocompatible single-chain polymer nanoparticles (SCPNs) based on poly(methacrylic acid) were prepared and functionalized with the somatostatin analogue PTR86 as the targeting moiety, since somatostatin receptors are overexpressed in pancreatic cancer. The gamma emitter 67Ga was incorporated by chelation and allowed in vivo investigation of the pharmacokinetic properties of the nanoparticles using single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT). The resulting engineered nanosystem was tested in a xenograph mouse model of human pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Imaging results demonstrate that accumulation of targeted SCPNs in the tumor is higher than that observed for nontargeted nanoparticles due to improved retention in this tissue. ¸ 2016 American Chemical Society. ; This project has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 263307 (SaveMe), from the Basque Government Elkartek biomaGUNE2015 and from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, project MAT2013-48169-R. Larraitz Gil-Iceta acknowledges a PhD studentship from the Department of Education, Language Policy and Culture of the Basque Government.