Separation and purification of no-carrier-added arsenic from bulk amounts of germanium for use in radiopharmaceutical labelling

Abstract

AbstractRadioarsenic labelled radiopharmaceuticals could add special features to molecular imaging with positron emission tomography (PET). For example the long physical half-lives of72As (T1/2=26 h) and74As (T1/2=17.8 d) in conjunction with their high positron branching rates of 88% and 29%, respectively, allow the investigation of slow physiological or metabolical processes, like the enrichment and biodistribution of monoclonal antibodies in tumour tissue or the characterization of stem cell trafficking. A method for separation and purification of no-carrier-added (nca) arsenic from irradiated metallic germanium targets based on distillation and anion exchange is developed. It finally converts the arsenic into an*As(III) synthon in PBS buffer and pH 7 suitable for labelling of proteinsviaAs-S bond formations. The method delivers radioarsenic in high purity with separation factors of 106from germanium and an overall yield from target to labelling synthon of >40%. In a proof-of-principle experiment, the monoclonal antibody Bevacizumab, directed against the human VEGF receptor, was labelled with a radiochemical yield >90% within 1 h at room temperature with nca72/74/77As.