YF2

Low-molecular-weight (LMW) PSMA-targeted agents have enjoyed success; however, their off-target toxicity in normal tissues such as kidneys, salivary gland and lacrimal gland can be dose limiting. Herein, we have evaluated the effect of co-administration of the non-radioactive iodo pseudo carrier, iodo YF2, on the normal tissue uptake of [²¹¹At]YF2 in xenografted mice. The potential implications for clinical translation of these studies were investigated by evaluating the binding of LMW PSMA-targeted agents to murine and human PSMA.

[²¹¹At]YF2 was synthesized following established protocols. Groups of 5 mice bearing subcutaneous PSMA+ PC3 PIP xenografts received [²¹¹At]YF2 co-injected with varying i.v. doses of iodo YF2 (0-2 nmol), and the biodistribution was evaluated at 1 h post injection (p.i.). In another study, the biodistribution of [²¹¹At]YF2 alone and [²¹¹At]YF2 co-administered with 1.5 nmol iodo YF2 was evaluated at 1 and 8 h p.i. Bead-based radioligand binding assays were conducted for [¹³¹I]YF2 and several other LMW agents to compare their binding to human and murine PSMA.

At 1 h, no significant difference was seen in kidney uptake of [²¹¹At]YF2 at iodo YF2 concentrations of 0, 0.05 and 0.1 nmol (p > 0.05), but renal accumulations significantly reduced by co-administering 2.0 nmol iodo YF2 (p < 0.0001). Decreases in salivary and lacrimal gland uptake also were observed at 1 h for [²¹¹At]YF2 co-injected with 0.1 nmol iodo YF2 (p < 0.05). A follow-up study revealed a kidney uptake of 1.8 ± 0.4 % ID/g for [²¹¹At]YF2 with 1.5 nmol iodo YF2, compared to 46.5 ± 7.7 % ID/g for [²¹¹At]YF2 alone at 8 h. Tumor uptake showed no significant difference (p > 0.05) between [²¹¹At]YF2 alone (17.1 ± 8.8 % ID/g at 1 h; 13.6 ± 5.3 % ID/g at 8 h) and [²¹¹At]YF2 plus 1.5 nmol iodo YF2 (12.8 ± 2.7 % ID/g at 1 h; 14.1 ± 3.2 % ID/g at 8 h). Bead-based radioligand binding assays showed that [¹³¹I]YF2 has the highest binding fractions to both human PSMA (94.1 ± 0.1 %) and murine PSMA (92.5 ± 0.2 %) with minimal differences between the two, while [¹⁷⁷Lu]PSMA-617 had the greatest species-dependent disparity with a binding fraction of 90.5 ± 0.3 % to human PSMA and 60.9 ± 1.4 % to murine PSMA.

Co-administration of iodo YF2 reduced kidney uptake of [²¹¹At]YF2 and decreased accumulation in normal tissues with no significant change in tumor uptake. In some cases, there was a significant difference in binding to human and murine PSMA among LMW PSMA-targeted agents suggesting that particularly for some agents, applying mouse data to predict human dosimetry must be done with caution.

The CRISPR-Cas9 system shows diverse levels of genome editing activities on eukaryotic chromatin, and high-efficiency sgRNA targets are usually desired in application. In this study, we show that chromatin open status is a pivotal determinant of the Cas9 editing activity in mammalian cells, and increasing chromatin accessibility can efficiently improve Cas9 genome editing. However, the strategy that increases chromatin openness by fusing the VP64 transcriptional activation domain at the C-terminus of Cas9 can only promote genome editing activity slightly at most tested CRISPR-Cas9 targets in Lenti-X 293T cells. Under the enlightenment that histone acetylation increases eukaryotic chromatin accessibility, we developed a composite strategy to further improve genome editing by activating histone acetylation. We demonstrate that promoting histone acetylation using the histone acetyltransferase activator YF-2 can improve the genome editing by Cas9 and, more robustly, by the Cas9 transcriptional activator (Cas9-AD). This strategy holds great potential to enhance CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing and to enable broader CRISPR gRNA target choices for experiments in eukaryotes.