Abstract
Objective
To develop a peptide probe that could be used for gastric cancer detection via binding to CD44 protein with specificity and affinity.
Results
A 12-mer phage peptide library was screened against immobilized CD44 protein. Bound phage counts using ELISA were performed to identify phage clones carrying the most highly selective peptide, which termed RP-1. Immunofluorescence and flow cytometry analysis indicated that the consensus peptide RP-1 could bind to CD44-positive gastric cancer cells with mean fluorescence intensities significantly higher than that of CD44-negative cells. CD44 knockdown led to decreased binding activity of RP-1 to the same cell line. Tissue array technique was used to identify the relationship (r = 0.556) between peptide binding and CD44 detection on gastric cancer tissues. Further, the hyaluronan-binding domain of CD44 was docked with RP-1 using computer modeling/docking approaches, revealing a RP-1/CD44 interaction with geometrical and energy match (−8.6 kcal/mol).
Conclusions
The RP-1 peptide we screened exhibits affinity and specificity to CD44 on cells and has the potential to be used as a candidate probe for gastric cancer cell targeting.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81172359 and 81472747).
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Zhang, D., Jia, H., Wang, Y. et al. A CD44 specific peptide developed by phage display for targeting gastric cancer. Biotechnol Lett 37, 2311–2320 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-015-1896-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-015-1896-z