Screening and identification of vascular-endothelial-cell-specific binding peptide in gastric cancer

Antiangiogenesis therapy has become a hot field in cancer research. Blood vessels of tumor carry specific markers that are usually related to angiogenesis. Study of these heterogeneous molecules in different tumor vessels may be beneficial for promoting antiangiogenic therapy. In this study, we established an in vitro co-culture model of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and gastric adenocarcinoma cell line SGC7901, screened the peptides binding specifically to the HUVECs co-cultured with gastric cancer cells (Co-HUVECs) using phage display peptides library, and studied the affinity of these peptides to gastric cancer vascular endothelial cells. After four rounds of panning, there was an obvious enrichment for the phages specifically binding to the Co-HUVECs, and the output/input ratio of Co-HUVECs increased about 590-fold (from 0.95x10(-7) to 561.25x10(-7)). Five phage clones (M6, M3, M9, IN12, IN11), which could strongly bind to Co-HUVECs instead of wild-type HUVECs, were characterized by ELISA. In vitro cellular binding assay showed that phage IN11 preferably bound to Co-HUVECs rather than control HUVECs, and the number of the phage IN11 recovered from Co-HUVECs was 5.7- and 16.9-folds, respectively, as much as those from control HUVECs and GES cells. Immunocytochemical and immunohistochemical staining confirmed that phage IN11 could specifically bind to Co-HUVECs as well as vascular endothelial cells in gastric cancer tissue sections. Competitive and inhibitory assay revealed the synthetic peptide GEBP11 (CTKNSYLMC) displayed on phage IN11 could competitively inhibit binding of the phage IN11 to Co-HUVECs. Immunofluorescence microscopy showed that the fluorescence-labeled peptide GEBP11 was located at the membrane and perinuclear cytoplasm of Co-HUVECs. Meanwhile, GEBP11 was found to be able to target the gastric cancer vascular endothelial cells. Therefore, GEBP11 may be a potential candidate for targeted drug delivery in antivascular therapy and diagnosis of gastric cancer.