Mucin4 (MUC4) antibody labeled with an NIR dye brightly targets pancreatic cancer liver metastases and peritoneal carcinomatosis

This report demonstrates the advantages of targeting metastatic pancreatic cancer with near-infrared dye conjugated MUC4 antibody in liver implant metastasis and peritoneal carcinomatosis mouse models. Metastatic models of the human pancreatic cancer cell line, SW1990, were established in nude mice by tumor fragment implantation or intraperitoneal cell injection and treated with 50 µg IRDye800CW labeled MUC4 antibodies (anti-MUC4-IR800), or IgG (IgG-IR800) as a control. Fluorescence imaging was performed and tumor-to-liver ratios (TLR) were calculated. In the liver implant and peritoneal carcinomatosis mouse models labeled with anti-MUC4-IR800, average mean fluorescence intensities and average TLRs were 0.500 (±0.070) and 2.273 (±0.605), and 1.65 (±0.545) and 9.048 (±3.383), respectively at 72 hours compared to 1.65 (±0.545) and 9.048 (±3.383), and 0.0879 (±0.0133) and 1.051 (±0.566) for IgG-IR800. MUC4 antibodies conjugated to near-infrared dyes enabled precise in-vivo labeling of pancreatic metastatic tumors and show promise as a potential clinical tool to improve the intraoperative staging of pancreatic cancer.