Radiolabeling with fluorine-18 of a protein, interleukin-1 receptor antagonist

IL-1RA is a naturally occurring antagonist of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-1 (IL-1) with high therapeutic promise, but its pharmacokinetic remains poorly documented. In this report, we describe the radiolabeling of recombinant human interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (rhIL-1RA) with fluorine-18 to allow pharmacokinetic studies by positron emission tomography (PET). rhIL-1RA was labeled randomly by reductive alkylation of free amino groups (the ε-amino group of lysine residues or amino-terminal residues) using [18F]fluoroacetaldehyde under mild reaction conditions. Radiosyntheses used a remotely controlled experimental rig within 100 min and the radiochemical yield was in the range 7.1–24.2% (decay corrected, based on seventeen syntheses). We showed that the produced [18F]fluoroethyl-rhIL-1ra retained binding specificity by conducting an assay on rat brain sections, allowing its pharmakokinetic study using PET.