Evaluation of Nonferrous Metals as Potential In Vivo Tracers of Transferrin-Based Therapeutics.

ABSTRACT: Transferrin (Tf) is a promising candidate for targeted drug delivery. While development of such products is impossible without the ability to monitor biodistribution of Tf-drug conjugates in tissues and reliable measurements of their levels in blood and other biological fluids, the presence of very abundant endogenous Tf presents a significant impediment to such efforts. Several noncognate metals have been evaluated in this work as possible tracers of exogenous transferrin in complex biological matrices using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP MS) as a detection tool. Placing Ni(II) on a His-tag of recombinant Tf resulted in formation of a marginally stable protein-metal complex, which readily transfers the metal to ubiquitous physiological scavengers, such as serum albumin.

SUBMITTER: Zhao H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4724545 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature