Radiosynthesis and evaluation of IGF1R PET ligand [11C]GSK1838705A

Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters 27 (2017) 2895–2897

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Radiosynthesis and evaluation of IGF1R PET ligand [11C]GSK1838705A Kiran Kumar Solingapuram Sai a, Jaya Prabhakaran b,c, Anirudh Sattiraju a, J. John Mann b,c, Akiva Mintz a, J.S. Dileep Kumar c,⇑ a

Department of Radiology, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, USA Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, USA c Molecular Imaging and Neuropathology Division, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, USA b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 21 March 2017 Revised 24 April 2017 Accepted 26 April 2017 Available online 27 April 2017 Keywords: IGF1R Growth factor Radiotracer Micropet

a b s t r a c t Radiosynthesis and evaluation of [11C]GSK1838705A in mice using microPET and determination of specificity in human GBM UG87MR cells are described herein. The radioligand was synthesized by reacting desmethyl-GSK1838705A with [11C]CH3I using GE FX2MeI module in 5% yield (EOS), >95% radiochemical purity and a specific activity of 2.5 ± 0.5 Ci/lmol. MicroPET imaging in mice indicated that [11C] GSK1838705A penetrated blood brain barrier (BBB) and showed retention of radiotracer in brain. The radioligand exhibited high uptake in U87MG cells with >70% specific binding to IGF1R. Our experiments suggest that [11C]GSK-1838705A can be a potential PET radiotracer for the in vivo quantification of IGF1R expression in GBM and other brain tumors. Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Insulin-like growth factors (IGFs or IGF-I and IGF-II) are growth hormones that have high sequence homology to insulin and function as a regulator of cellular proliferation, apoptosis, energy metabolism and various organ-specific functions.1–3 The functions of IGFs are mediated through IGF1R, IGF2R and IGF binding proteins (IGF-BP).4,5 IGF1R shares 60–80% homology with the insulin receptor (IR), allowing formation of homo/hybrid receptors in their functions.6,7 Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) is another tyrosine kinase, which shares high homology with IGF1R/IR and also forms corresponding fusion proteins.8–10 Overexpression of IGF1R has been found in many cancers affecting multiple aspects of malignancy and metastases.11–16 IGF1R has been considered as a cancer therapeutic target for almost 20 years and to date at least 30 different agents targeting the IGF-1R are in preclinical or clinical development.13–22 Among the cancers, gliobalstoma multiforme (GBM) is the most lethal and highly malignant brain tumor with high mortality.23–25 The overall prognosis of GBM is poor and median survival of patients receiving surgery and radiotherapy combined with chemotherapy is approximately 14 months. By the time most patients are diagnosed the tumor has spread throughout the brain and both surgery and radiation treatments cannot eliminate the tumor.26,27 Currently, no specific laboratory tests are available for effective diagnosis of GBM. A significant body of literature now exists to identify biomarkers and therapeutic targets for GBM.28– 30 Among these, IGF1R is a unique pathway, and is overexpressed ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.S.D. Kumar). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bmcl.2017.04.085 0960-894X/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

in majority of GBMs in comparison to normal brain.31–34 Several IGF1R ligands were tested or currently in various clinical trials for cancer/tumor therapy including GBM with mixed results regarding efficacy and side effects.13 Therapeutic failures of GBM treatment have often been attributed to insufficient delivery of therapeutic agents to tumor tissues due to lack of BBB permeability, development of drug resistance, and tumors being drug-nonresponsive due to less optimal activity of IGF1R. Therefore, a BBB penetrating PET ligand that can quantify IGF1R noninvasively would be a valuable biomarker for detecting IGF1R over-expressing GBM and determining occupancy in the tumor of IGF1R targeted therapeutic drugs. Several classes of radioligands including proteins, antibodies, peptides, affibodies and small molecule-based thymidine kinase receptor inhibitors (TKRI) ligands are reported for IGF1R.35 Although some of the ligands listed above showed promise for imaging IGF1R, these molecules do not cross the BBB due to their polar nature and are limited to imaging outside the brain.36–40 Therefore, small molecule TKRIs targeting IGF1R and or its fusion proteins with high receptor affinity, selectivity and adequate lipophilicity may be suitable biomarkers for in vivo imaging using PET. We screened many TKRIs targeting IGF1R for this purpose, and our 1st generation radiotracer [18F]BMS-754807 exhibited higher binding in various human cancer tissues including GBM (>5-fold binding) in comparison to control tissues, however, did not show binding to rodent brain due to its poor BBB penetration.41,42 Herein, we describe the radiosynthesis and evaluation of [11C] GSK-1838705A, another high affinity IGF1R/IR ligand.

K.K. Solingapuram Sai et al. / Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters 27 (2017) 2895–2897

GSK1838705A (1) is an orally bioavailable, potent, reversible and selective small molecule inhibitor of the IGF1R/IR (Ki < 2 nM) and ALK (IC50 = 0.5 nM) with no significant activity to other kinases.43–45 Although GSK-1838705A shows significant ALK activity, the cell proliferation assays indicate that IC50 is >2 times of IGF1R (190 nM vs 85 nM).43 This illustrate that major biological functions of GSK1838705A are mediated through its IGF1R pathway. GSK1838705A is currently in preclinical evaluation for a variety of experimental models of cancers including U87MG glioma xenograft and shows excellent tumor regression with no significant side effects.43,46 Furthermore, our studies with 1 lM GSK1838705A shows excellent blocking of the IGF1R PET ligand [18F] BMS-754807 in a variety of cancer tissues including GBM and normal brain tissues by in vitro autoradiography methods supporting its IGF1R activity.41 The attractive selectivity/specificity of compound 1 over other kinases, excellent antitumor activities, optimal lipophilicity for BBB penetration (Clog P = 2.5) and presence of Omethoxy group amenable for radiolabeling with [11C]carbon prompted us to choose it as a candidate radiotracer for imaging IGF1R with PET. Compound 1 is commercially available and its radiolabeling precursor (2) was obtained by its O-demethylation with BBr3 in 80% yield (Scheme 1).47 Radiosynthesis of [11C] GSK1838705A has been accomplished by reacting desmethyl precursor compound 2 with [11C]CH3I in presence of 5 N NaOH tetrabutyl ammonium hydroxide using a GE FX2MeI module (Scheme 1).48 The radioproduct was obtained in 4 ± 2% yield (EOS) with >95% radiochemical purity and 2.5 ± 0.5 Ci/lmol specific activity (N = 6). The total synthetic time for [11C]1 was 50 min at EOS. Further improvement of radiochemical yield of [11C]1 and [18F]version of GSK1838705 are under progress. The radioproduct was formulated in 5% ethanol and normal saline solution and filtered through a 0.22 mm sterile filter into a sterile vial for further studies. Subsequently we examined the uptake of [11C]1 in human U87MG glioblastoma cancer cells for 5 and 30 min at 37 °C (N = 3) following the standard protocols.49,50 The radioligand shows excellent uptake in U87MG cancer cells and the specificity of radioligand binding was demonstrated by blocking with unlabeled GSK1938705A (Fig. 1). MicroPET imaging of [11C]1 (50 ± 10 lCi, 100 lL) was performed in anesthetized C57BL/6 mice brain (N = 3) using Trifoil PET/CT scanner.51 Basic PET-CT image analyses indicate that radioligand penetrated BBB and show moderate binding in brain (Fig. 2).

%[11C]GSK1838705A /mg of protein

2896

8

Total binding Specific binding

6

4

2

0

Fig. 1. In vitro cell uptake of [11C]GSK1838705A in U87MG cells at 5 min and 30 min incubation time points.

Fig. 2. Sum of 0–20 min fused PET/CT image of [11C]GSK-1838705A in a representative mouse brain. First column: axial; second column: Coronal; third column: transaxial.

In summary, we synthesized high affinity IGF1R/IR radioligand [11C]GSK1838705A in GE FX2MeI automation module with excellent purity and specific activity. Radiotracer exhibited BBB penetration and accumulation in mice brain and showed specific uptake in human glioblastoma U87MG cell lines. The radiotracer uptake in brain is relatively lower than other established neuroreceptor ligands possibly due to relatively lower expression of IGF1R protein in normal brain.52 [11C]GSK1838705A is the first IGF1R targeted radiotracer based on TKRIs showing BBB penetration and retention brain. Therefore, [11C]GSK1838705A may be a useful imaging agent for the in vivo quantification of intracranial tumors including GBM or neurological disorders where IGF1R is overexpressed. Acknowledgement This work was partially supported by Translational Imaging Program of the Wake Forest CTSA (UL1TR001420), ACS mentored research scholar grant (Mintz, 124443-MRSG-13-121-01-CDD) and P30 CA012197 (Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest University (CCCWFU)). References

Scheme 1. Radiosynthesis of [11C]GSK1838705A.

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K.K. Solingapuram Sai et al. / Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters 27 (2017) 2895–2897 8. Isozaki H, Ichihara E, Takigawa N, et al. Cancer Res. 2016;76:1506–1516. 9. Megiorni F, McDowell HP, Camero S, et al. J Exp Clin Cancer Res. 2015;34:112–127. 10. Maris C, D’Haene N, Trépant AL, et al. Br J Cancer. 2015;113:729–737. 11. Gong Y, Ma Y, Sinyuk M, et al. Neuro Oncol. 2016;18:48–57. 12. Hewish M, Chau I, Cunningham D. Recent Pat Anticancer Drug Discovery. 2009;4:54–72. 13. . 14. Björner S, Rosendahl AH, Simonsson M, et al. Oncotarget. 2016. http://dx.doi. org/10.18632/oncotarget.14082. 15. Denduluri SK, Idowu O, Wang Z, et al. Genes & Diseases. 2015;2(1):13–25. 16. Schwartz GK, Dickson MA, LoRusso PM, et al. Cancer Sci. 2016;107:499–506. 17. Iams WT, Lovly CM. Clin Cancer Res. 2015;21:4270–4277. 18. Ochnik AM, Baxter RC. Endocr Relat Cancer. 2016;23:R513–R536. 19. Ozkan EE. Mol Cell Endocrinol. 2011;344:1–24. 20. Yee DJ. Natl Cancer Inst. 2012;104:975–981. 21. Gao J, Chang YS, Jallal B. Cancer Res. 2012;73:3–12. 22. Xue M, Cao X, Zhong Y, et al. Curr Pharm Dis. 2012;18:2901–2913. 23. Davis ME. Clin J Oncol Nurs. 2016;20:S2–S8. 24. Polivka Jr J, Polivka J, Holubec L, et al. Anticancer Res. 2017;37:21–33. 25. Chen R, Cohen AL, Colman H. Curr Treat Options Oncol. 2016;17:42. 26. Tabouret E, Nguyen AT, Dehais C, et al. Acta Neuropathol. 2016;132:625–634. 27. American Brain Tumor Association. Glioblastoma and Malignant Astrocytoma. http://abta.org/secure/glioblastoma-brochure.pdf. 28. Katharina S, Dorothee G, Patrick R, Michael W. Expert Opin Pharmacother. 2016;17:1259–1270. 29. Subramanian V, Martine LLM, Clemens DMF, Sieger L. CNS Oncol. 2016;5:77–90. 30. Thuy MN, Kam JK, Lee GC, et al. J Clin Neurosci. 2015;22:785–799. 31. Estefania C-G, Miguel S, Isabel M-L. Cells. 2014;3:199–235. 237. 32. Ma Y, Tang N, Thompson RC, et al. Clin Cancer Res. 2016;22:1767–1776. 33. Maris C, D’Haene N, Trépant AL, et al. Br J Cancer. 2015;113:729–737. 34. Lovly CM, McDonald NT, Chen H, et al. Nat Med. 2014;20:1027–1034. 35. Zhang Y, Cai W. Am J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2012;2:248–259. 36. England CG, Kamkaew A, Im HJ, et al. Mol Pharm. 2016;13:1958–1966. 37. Tian X, Aruva MR, Zhang K, et al. J Nucl Med. 2007;48:1699–1707. 38. Tian X, Aruva MR, Qin W, et al. J Nucl Med. 2004;45:2070–2082. 39. Tolmachev V, Malmberg J, Hofström C, et al. J Nucl Med. 2012;53:90–97. 40. Su X, Cheng K, Liu Y, Hu X, Meng S, Cheng Z. Amino Acids. 2015;47:1409–1419. 41. Majo VJ, Prabhakaran J, Arango V, et al. Bioorg Med Chem Lett. 2013;23:4191–4194. 42. Prabhakaran J, Dewey SL, McClure R, et al. Bioorg Med Chem Lett. 2017;27:941–943. 43. Sabbatini P, Korenchuk S, Rowand JL, et al. Mol Cancer Ther. 2009;8:2811–2820. 44. Chamberlain SD, Redman AM, Wilson JW, et al. Optimization of 4,6-bis-anilino1H-pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidine IGF-1R tyrosine kinase inhibitors towards JNK selectivity. Bioorg Med Chem Lett. 2009;19:360–364. 45. Ardini E, Magnaghi P, Orsini P, Galvani A, Menichincheri M. Cancer Lett. 2010;299:81–94. 46. Zhou X, Shen F, Ma P, et al. Mol Med Rep. 2015;12:5641–5646. 47. Desmethyl-GSK1838705A (2): GSK1838705A (53 mg, 0.1 mmol) was dissolved in anhydrous dichloromethane (2 mL) and a 1 M solution of BBr3 in dichloromethane (2 mL) was added dropwise to it at 0 °C. The solution was stirred for 12 h at 50 °C. An aliquot of reaction mixture was quenched with methanol, performed analytical HPLC and conformed complete conversion of GSK1838705A. The reaction was quenched by dropwise addition of methanol (2 mL) at 0 °C, diluted with water (5 mL), extracted with 50 mL of dichloromethane (2  25 mL) followed by 50 mL of ethyl acetate (2  25 mL). The combined organic extracts were washed with brine, dried over anhydrous MgSO4. Solvent was evaporated under reduced pressure and the residue obtained was washed with ice cold hexane to obtain compound 2 (38 mg, 80%) as a yellow solid. 2: 1H NMR (300 MHz, CD3OD) d: 2.5 (s, 6H), 2.9 (s, 3H), 3.15 (s, 2H), 3.2 (m, 2H), 4.2 (m, 2H), 6.4 (s,1 H), 6.8 (m, 3H), 7.4 (m, 1H), 8.4 (m, 1H), 8.6 (s, 1H); HRMS (EI+) calculated for: C26H27FN8O3: 518.2234; Found: 518.2253.

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48. Radiosynthesis of [11C]GSK1838705A: [11C]MeI from FX2MeI module was bubbled to the reaction vial placed in FX2M module containing precursor 2 (0.5 mg) in anhydrous DMF (0.4 mL) and 10 L of 5 N NaOH for 5 min at room temperature. After the complete transfer of radioactivity, the sealed reaction vial was then heated at 80 °C for 5 min. The reaction mixture was quenched with HPLC mobile phase (0.7 mL) and injected onto a reverse-phase semipreparative C18 Phenomenex ODS (250  10 mm, 10 l) HPLC column with mobile phase solution consisted of 60% acetonitrile, 40% 0.1 M aqueous ammonium formate solution (pH value 6.0–6.5) with UV wavelength at 254 nm and a flow rate of 5.0 mL/min. The radioproduct (Rt = 8–10 min) was collected and diluted with 100 mL deionized water, and passed through C18 SepPak cartridge (WAT036800, Waters, Milford, MA) to trap the radiotracer. Radioactive product was then eluted from the cartridge with absolute ethanol (1.0 mL) and formulated with saline (10% ethanol in saline). The final product [11C] GSK1838705A was directly collected into a sterile vial through a sterile 0.22 mm pyrogen-free filter (Millipore Corp., Billerica, MA) for further animal studies and quality control analysis. [11C]GSK1838705A purity was assessed using an analytical reverse phase Phenomenex ODS C18 analytical HPLC column (250  4.6 mm, 5 m) with a mobile phase (1.0 mL/min, k = 254 nm) consisted of 60% acetonitrile and 40% 0.1 M aqueous ammonium formate pH 6.0–6.5 solution. [11C]GSK1838705A showed a retention at 6 min, and authentication of the product was performed with co-injection of the nonradioactive standard GSK1838705A, which demonstrated a similar retention times. The specific activities were determined at EOS based on the UV absorption and concentration standard GSK1838705A curves (k = 254 nm). 49. Solingapuram Sai KK, Das BC, Sattiraju A, Almaguel FG, Craft S, Mintz A. Bioorg Med Chem Lett. 2017;27:1425–1427. 50. In vitro binding of [11C]GSK1838705A in U87MG cells GBM cell line U87 (1  105 cells, obtained from ATCC research Inc were seeded into each well of a 6-well culture. U87 cells were incubated overnight at 37 °C with 5% CO2 in an incubator. On the day of the assay, fresh solution of unlabeled GSK1838705A ligand was made at a concentration of 3.0 mM in the respective cell media and was used as the blocker solution. The blocker solution was added 5.0 min prior to addition of radiotracer. U87 cells were incubated with [11C]GSK1838705A (2 mCi/well) for 5 min and 30 min (N = 3) at 37 °C. The cell uptake assays were initiated by rinsing the cells with 2  2 mL of the phosphate buffer at room temperature. Uptake was allowed to proceed for selected time periods and then terminated by rinsing the cell wells with 1 mL of the ice-cold buffer solution. Residual fluid was removed by pipette, and 200 mL of 0.1% aqueous sodium dodecylsulfate lysis buffer solution was added to each well. The plate was then agitated at room temperature and 1 mL of the lysate was taken from each well for gamma counting. The radioactivity was counted using the Wallac 1480 Wizard gamma counter (Perkin Elmer, Turku, Finland). Additional 20 mL aliquots were taken in triplicate from each well for protein concentration determination using the Pierce bicinchoninic acid protein assay kit method (Rockford, IL). The uptake data in each sample from each well and the standard counts for each condition were expressed as counts per minute (cpm) of activity and were decay corrected for elapsed time. The cpm values of each well were normalized to the amount of radioactivity added to each well and the protein concentration in the well and expressed as percent uptake relative to the control condition. The data were expressed as % ID/mg of protein present in each well with p values 0.005 considered statistically significant. 51. MicroPET studies of [11C]GSK1838705A in mice. All animal handling and experimental procedures were performed under an IACUC approved protocol of Wake Forest Medical Center. MicroPET imaging of [11C]GSK1838705A were performed in anesthetized male C57BL/6 mice (N = 3) using Trifoil PET/CT scanner. After the transmission scans, [11C]GSK1838705A (50 ± 0.10 lCi) was injected into the tail vein and initiated camera acquisition for 20 min and reconstructed using attenuation correction and Fourier rebinning. The dynamic images were reconstructed using a filtered back-projection algorithm (microPET Manager). 52. .