Synthesis and biological evaluation of [18F](2S,4S)4-(3-fluoropropyl) arginine as a tumor imaging agent.

Designing novel 18F-labeled amino acid derivatives for targeted amino acid transporters is an attractive strategy for the development of therapeutic and diagnostic agents for cancer therapy. In this work, we have developed a novel 3-fluoropropyl analog of arginine, namely, (2S,4S)4-[18F]FPArg, [18F]1, to be used as a probe for studying arginine metabolism. Optically pure and labeled with 18F and 19F, (2S,4S)4-(3-fluoropropyl)arginine was synthesized and isolated in high radiochemical purity (>95%). In vitro uptake assays in human MCF-7 cells revealed that [18F]1 enters cells mainly via sodium-independent cationic amino acid transporters and was inhibited >62% by arginine. [18F]1 showed a high cellular uptake of 7.3 ± 0.24% and 6.07 ± 0.3% uptake/100 mg protein after incubation in MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells for 120 min, respectively. In vivo biodistribution studies demonstrated that [18F]1 provided high tumor uptake and high tumor to muscle ratios (5:1 at the 30 and 60 min time points). In vivo PET imaging studies demonstrated tumor-specific uptake in nude mice bearing MCF-7 breast tumors with an excellent tumor-to-muscle ratio. These results suggest that [18F]1 is a promising tracer for clinical breast cancer imaging and may be used to diagnose and monitor diseases that are associated with arginine metabolism.