Issue 10, 2022

Integrating a covalent probe with ubiquicidin fragment enables effective bacterial infection imaging

Abstract

Developing potent and novel bacterial imaging agents remains formidable due to the rapid development of bacterial resistance. Ubiquicidin and its derivatives are the most studied antimicrobial peptides that bind to anionic membranes of a broad range of bacterial pathogens. Studies reveal that UBI (29-41) labeled with 99mTc and 68Ga could distinguish sterile inflammation from infection. A significant challenge that remains for cationic peptides is their poor salt tolerance. The present study deliberates the increment of UBI (29-41) peptide interaction with the bacterial membrane by incorporating 2-acetylphenylboronic acid (2-APBA) as a covalent probe and developing infection imaging probes with improved retention at the target. Given that both 99mTc-UBI (29-41) and 99mTc-UBI (29-41)-2-APBA peptide complexes are stable in serum over 16 h, 99mTc-UBI (29-41)-2-APBA shows enhanced uptake in S. aureus cells as compared to 99mTc-UBI (29-41). SPECT imaging in a mouse model of infection exhibited a higher target to non-target ratio after 2 h in the case of 99mTc-UBI (29-41)-2-APBA. The present study reveals a synergistic mechanism of target binding through covalent conjugation and non-covalent interaction, which could be a potential strategy for improving bacterial infection imaging. As a proof of concept, 99mTc-UBI (29-41)-2-APBA elicits our hypothesis by in vivo imaging of bacterial infection.

Graphical abstract: Integrating a covalent probe with ubiquicidin fragment enables effective bacterial infection imaging

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Research Article
Submitted
23 jun 2022
Accepted
25 jul 2022
First published
01 aug 2022

RSC Med. Chem., 2022,13, 1239-1245

Integrating a covalent probe with ubiquicidin fragment enables effective bacterial infection imaging

J. Bhatt Mitra, S. Chatterjee, A. Kumar, A. Bandyopadhyay and A. Mukherjee, RSC Med. Chem., 2022, 13, 1239 DOI: 10.1039/D2MD00190J

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements