SPECT imaging and biodistribution studies of 111In-EGF-Au-PEG nanoparticles in vivo

Radiolabelled antibodies and peptides hold promise for molecular radiotherapy but are often limited by low payload resulting in delivery of inadequate amounts of radioactivity to tumour tissue and, therefore, modest therapeutic effect. We have developed PEGylated epidermal growth factor (EGF)-gold nanoparticles (NP) with a high indium-111 (111In) payload (111In-EGF-Au-PEG NPs) as a prototypic NP-based theranostic radiopharmaceutical.