The set of peptides that is bound by a given major histocompatibility complex class I product can be described by one or two properly spaced anchor residues, and two properly spaced peptide termini, approximately 8-10 residues apart. Using radiolabeled peptide libraries, we examined whether mutations in those "pockets" in class I Kb molecules that do not seem critically involved in the interact...

Nuclear medicine plays a pivotal role in the management of patients affected by neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs). Radiolabeled somatostatin receptor analogs are by far the most advanced radiopharmaceuticals for diagnosis and therapy (radiotheranostics) of NENs. Their clinical success emerged receptor-targeted radiolabeled peptides as an important class of radiopharmaceuticals and it paved the wa...

The goal of this study was to synthesize and evaluate a novel bombesin (BN) analogue containing a polyethylene glycol (PEG) linker that can be radiolabeled with 64Cu through the DOTA bifunctional chelate. It is hypothesized that PEG linkers would improve the pharmacokinetics of radiolabeled bombesin analogues to optimize their tumor-to-normal tissue ratios for radiotherapy applications. The for...

Ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) is the initial inducible enzyme in the polyamine biosynthetic pathway. In the transformed macrophage-derived RAW264 cell line, ODC was overproduced and existed in both unphosphorylated and phosphorylated forms. To date, the only protein kinase known to phosphorylate mammalian ODC is casein kinase II (CKII). ODC was phosphorylated in vitro by CKII and subjected to e...

The mechanism of tumor-associated hypoglycemia was examined in 11 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, 6 of whom presented with severe hypoglycemia and 5 in whom plasma glucose was persistently normal. Serum insulin levels in the hypoglycemic patients were low. Although total serum insulin-like growth factor II (IGF-II) levels in both groups of tumor patients were lower than normal, tumor ti...

background: in order to diagnose the site of thrombi, radiolabeled streptokinase can be prepared. the radiolabeled compound can be used in imaging of thrombi in many cardiovascular diseases. materials and methods: streptokinase was successively labeled with [67ga]-gallium chloride using cyclic dtpa-dianhydride. the conjugation with dtpa was optimized for concentration, time and temperature foll...

Introduction: Over expression of selected peptide receptors in human tumors has been shown to represent clinically relevant targets for cancer diagnosis and therapy. The aim of this work was to investigate Neuropeptide Y (NPY) as a new radiopharmaceutical for diagnosis of breast cancer. Methods: A neuropeptide Y analogues with Y1 receptor preference and agonistic properties was synthesized by s...

We developed a screening procedure to identify ligands from a phage display random peptide library that are selective for circulating bone marrow derived cells homing to angiogenic tumors. Panning the library on blood outgrowth endothelial cell suspension in vitro followed by in vivo selection based on homing of bone marrow-bound phage to angiogenic tumors, yielded the peptide QFPPKLTNNSML. Upo...