Femoral Head Growth Plate Dysplasia and Fracture in Juvenile Rabbits Induced by Off-target Antiangiogenic Treatment

Development of a novel albumin-based and maleimidopropionic acid-conjugated peptide with prolonged half-life and increased in vivo anti-tumor efficacy

Angiogenesis plays a critical role in tumor aggressiveness, and a lot of anti-angiogenic agents have been used in clinical therapy. The therapeutic efficacy of peptides are generally restricted by the short in vivo life-time, thus, we were interested in developing a novel albumin-based and maleimidopropionic acid-conjugated peptide to prolong the half-life and improve the anti-tumor effect.

Methods: We developed a peptide F56 with a maleimidopropionic acid (MPA) at the C-terminal (denoted as F56-CM), which allows immediate and irreversible conjugation with serum albumin. Biological property and anti-tumor activity of F56-CM were evaluated in vitro and in vivo.

Results: We showed that F56-CM reduced migration and tube formation of endothelial cells in vitro and inhibited the generation of subintestinal vessels (SIV) in zebrafish embryos in vivo. F56-CM inhibited vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) induced phosphorylation of VEGFR1 and activation of the PI3K-AKT axis. Furthermore, F56-CM rapidly conjugated with albumin upon intravenous injection and extended the biological half-life of F56 from 0.4249 h to 6.967 h in rats. Compared with F56, F56-CM exhibited stronger anti-tumor activity on both BGC-823 gastric cancer and HT-29 colon cancer xenografts in nude mice, and the statistical difference was remarkable. More significantly, the efficacy of F56-CM inhibiting lung metastasis of BGC-823 cells was also better than that of F56. The inhibition rates were 62.1% and 78.9% for F56 and F56-CM respectively when administrated every day, and 43.8% and 63.1% when administrated every four days at equal dose.

Conclusions: Taken together, our results demonstrated that F56-CM has considerable potential for cancer therapy.

Drug-induced Physeal Abnormalities in Preclinical Toxicity Studies

Most toxic physeal changes are characterized microscopically by altered chondrocyte development, proliferation, or maturation in the growth plate and eventually result in disordered appositional bone growth. Many therapeutic drugs directly or indirectly target proteins involved in chondrocytic differentiation and maturation pathways, so toxic physeal injury has become increasingly common in preclinical toxicologic pathology. While physeal dysplasia has been associated with several different drug classes including bisphosphonates, vascular endothelial growth factor receptor inhibitors, fibroblast growth factor receptor inhibitors, transforming growth factor beta receptor inhibitors, and vascular targeting agents, physeal changes often share similar morphologic features including thickening and disorganization of the hypertrophic layer, increased numbers of hypertrophic chondrocytes, altered mineralization of endochondral ossification, and/or increased thickness of subphyseal bone. Knowledge of genetic and nutritional diseases affecting bone growth has been important in helping to determine which specific target drugs may be affecting that could result in toxic physeal lesions. A pathophysiologic mechanism for most physeal toxicants has been determined in detail using a variety of investigative techniques. However, due to the signaling cross talk and the tight regulation required for chondrocyte maturation in the physis, several growth factor pathways are likely to be affected simultaneously with pharmacologic disruption of physeal homeostasis and inhibition of one factor necessary for chondrocyte function often affects others.