Avidin/Biotin Bioinspired Platform for Dual In Vivo ¹⁸F-PET/NIRF Molecular Imaging

The complementary nature of positron emission tomography (PET) and near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF) imaging makes the development of innovative multimodal PET/NIRF probes a very exciting prospect. Herein, the bioinspired design of novel platform exploiting the strength and specificity of interactions between radioactive and fluorescent biotin derivatives and an avidin core is reported. The combination of an original [¹⁸F]fluoropyridinylated-biotin derivative and commercially available fluorescent biotin derivatives (Atto-425 and Atto-680) is investigated. The in vivo distribution of such a customized platform is also reported, for the first time, in healthy rodent using PET and ex vivo fluorescence imaging.