|
|
|
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
METABOLISM, TRANSPORT, AND PHARMACOGENOMICS
Department of Chemistry (J.Y., H.C., J.-X.C., P.S.L.), Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering (H.C., J.-X.C.), Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana; and Endocyte, Inc., West Lafayette, Indiana (I.R.V.)
Received for publication
November 26, 2006
Accepted
February 6, 2007.
| Abstract |
|---|
|
|
|---|
pH 6.5). Taken together, these data argue that the FR-trafficking pathway does not involve acidic compartments and that acyl hydrazone linkers may constitute a poor option for FR-mediated drug delivery.
pH 6.5) has also been proposed to assist in release of these drugs, especially when the conjugate is expected to be trapped within the tumor for prolonged periods (Ashby, 1966
Among the acid-labile linkers in common use today, acyl hydrazones have exhibited good activity in many preclinical studies. When exploited to link doxorubicin to tumor-recognizing antibodies, for example, an acyl hydrazone bridge was found to resist unwanted hydrolysis at neutral pH (>10% drug release at 5 h) but readily discharge free doxorubicin after only 2 h at pH 4.5 (>50% release) (Kaneko et al., 1991
). Not surprisingly, when tested on tumor-bearing mice, the antibody-targeted, releasable doxorubicin exhibited a maximal tolerated dose approximately 3- to 4-fold higher than the unmodified drug (Trail et al., 1992
). Similar improvement in drug tolerance has also been observed with pH-sensitive antibody-conjugated vinca alkaloids (Laguzza et al., 1989
; Johnson et al., 1990
; Gutowski et al., 1991
; Appleman and Frey, 1996
).
The folate receptor (FR), a GPI-anchored membrane protein involved in folate endocytosis, is often overexpressed on tumor cells (Elnakat and Ratnam, 2004
). Because folate and folate-drug conjugates bind FR with high affinity (Kd
1 nM) and because FR rapidly recycles between the plasma membrane and the cell interior (Kamen and Smith, 2004
; Sabharanjak and Mayor, 2004
), strategies have been pursued to exploit folate for selective targeting of attached imaging and therapeutic agents to tumors (Jackman et al., 2004
; Leamon and Reddy, 2004
; Lu et al., 2004
; Zhao and Lee, 2004
; Hilgenbrink and Low, 2005
; Reddy et al., 2005
). Analyses of such drug uptake processes reveal that folate-drug conjugates are internalized into endosomes via receptor-mediated endocytosis (Chatterjee et al., 2001
) and then released from FR before it resurfaces for the next round of delivery (Kamen and Smith, 2004
; Paulos et al., 2004
). It is noteworthy that a previous report by Lee et al. (1996
) that the pH of FR-containing endosomes can drop below pH 5 offered encouragement that pH-labile linkers might be ideal for assuring efficient drug release only after uptake by targeted cancer cells. However, more recent studies of Fivaz et al. (2002
) demonstrated that polyvalent ligands, such as those used by Lee et al. (1996
) to measure endosomal pH, follow a different endocytic pathway than monovalent ligands for GPI-anchored receptors, such as FR, which raised questions regarding the applicability of the Lee et al. (1996
) studies to delivery of monovalent folate-targeted drugs.
To evaluate the effectiveness of pH-sensitive acyl hydrazone linkers for intracellular drug release during FR-mediated endocytosis, we prepared a folate-dye conjugate [acid-labile folate-fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) reporter (ALFR)] whose fluorescence is quenched via intramolecular FRET until the pH-sensitive hydrazone bond to the dye is cleaved at low pH. By measuring fluorescence, we first characterized the folate-FRET reporter's cleavage kinetics at different pH values in vitro and then monitored cleavage of the folate conjugate in real time in intact cancer cells during folate receptor-mediated endocytosis. Because the rate of intracellular hydrazone hydrolysis was unexpectedly slow, we finally characterized the pH of monovalent folate conjugate-containing endosomal compartments in live cells.
|
| Materials and Methods |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Cell Culture. KB cells, a human nasopharyngeal cancer cell line, was grown continuously as a monolayer using folate-free RPMI 1640 medium (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) containing 10% heat-inactivated fetal calf serum (Hyclone, Logan, UT) at 37°C in a 5% CO2/95% air-humidified atmosphere in the presence of ampicillin and streptomycin. Cells were grown in 35-mm glass bottom Petri dishes (Mat Tek, Ashland, MA) for imaging studies. All cells were cultured to 50 to 60% confluence before each experiment.
Synthesis and Characterization of the ALFR. Synthesis of ALFR was carried out by following Scheme 1. In brief, folate-dabcyl was prepared by standard Fmoc chemistry on an acid-sensitive trityl resin loaded with Fmoc-L-Cys(Trt)-OH as described previously (Leamon et al., 2002
). Crude folate-dabcyl was dissolved in water, pH 8.2, in the presence of argon to prevent disulfide bond formation. The resulting solution was loaded on a VYDAC "protein and peptide C18" HPLC column and separated using 10 mM ammonium acetate, pH 5.0, and acetonitrile as the mobile phase. HPLC-purified folatedabcyl was characterized by LC-MS (Mr = 1135.09), using a Waters 2995 HPLC system coupled with a Waters Micromass ZQ Mass Spectrometer (Waters, Milford, MA).
4-Maleimidophenylacetic acid (2.1 mg) was reacted with BODIPY FL hydrazide (3 mg) in tetrahydrofuran using trifluoroacetic acid (1 Eq relative to 4-maleimidophenylacetic acid) as a catalyst. Reaction progress was followed by analytical HPLC (mobile phase: 10 mM ammonium acetate, pH 5.0, in acetonitrile) and found to reach 90% completion within 0.5 h. After removal of tetrahydrofuran in vacuo, folate-dabcyl (9 mg) and excess N,N'-diisopropylethylamine were added, and the reaction progress was again monitored by analytical HPLC (mobile phase: 10 mM ammonium acetate, pH 7.0, in acetonitrile). By 1 h, the reaction was found to reach completion, and the desired product was isolated by preparative HPLC using 1 mM sodium phosphate, pH 7.2, as the mobile phase. The final conjugate, ALFR, was characterized by LC-MS (Mr = 1638.4). Analytical and preparative HPLC runs were performed using a Waters 2996 system and a Waters 2487 system, respectively. All HPLC systems used in this study are coupled with a Waters Photodiode array.
The binding specificity and affinity of ALFR for the folate receptor was determined by a previously described competition assay with slight modification (Leamon et al., 2002
). In brief, KB cells were incubated with folate rhodamine (25 nM; Kd for FR
20 nM) in the presence of increasing concentrations of ALFR (0200 nM) for 30 min on ice, followed by washes with fresh phosphate-buffered saline to remove unbound conjugate. Cells were then immediately lysed with 2% SDS and measured for rhodamine fluorescence using an Aminco Bowman Series 2 luminescence spectrometer (excitation: 545 nm, emission: 595 nm) (Thermo Electron, Waltham, MA). Analysis of the competitive binding curve yielded a Kd of ALFR for the folate receptor of
17 nM (Supplemental Data).
Characterization of the pH-Dependent Cleavage of ALFR in Solution. To measure the pH dependence of ALFR hydrolysis in vitro, ALFR was dissolved in 10 mM sodium citrate, pH 4 and 5, or 10 mM sodium phosphate, pH 6 and 7. ALFR solutions (10 nM) were incubated at room temperature for the indicated lengths of time and then subjected to fluorescence spectrophotometry (excitation: 488 nm and emission: 520 nm) using an Aminco Bowman Series 2 luminescence spectrometer. The fluorescence intensities were plotted against incubation time, and SigmaPlot software (Systat Software, San Jose, CA) was used to calculate the release half-time assuming first-order kinetics at all pH values.
FRET Imaging. FRET imaging was performed using an Olympus IX-70 inverted confocal microscope system. KB cells were incubated with a mixture of ALFR (100 nM) and folate rhodamine (a known ligand for FR; 100 nM) for 30 min on ice to minimize diffusional uptake of the probe and to prevent any receptor-mediated endocytosis before imaging. Cells were then washed with fresh culture medium to remove unbound conjugate. After incubation at 37°C in culture medium for the desired lengths of time (0.5 to 55 h), cells were examined under an Olympus 60X/1.2 NA water objective (Olympus USA, Center Valley, PA) using an argon laser (488 nm) and the proper emission filter (520/40 nm). As a positive control, the same cells were also imaged for folate-rhodamine fluorescence (
ex = 543 nm,
em = 595 nm) to assure that FR internalization occurred normally. Image processing was performed using FluoView software (Olympus USA).
|
| Results |
|---|
|
|
|---|
As an initial test of this methodology, the kinetics of the folate-FRET reporter dequenching was determined at various pH values (i.e., 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, and 7.0). As seen in Fig. 2, half-times for ALFR hydrolysis (assuming a first-order reaction in all cases) were found to be 1.95 h at pH 4, 4.63 h at pH 5, and 75 h at pH 6. No release was detected at pH 7. These data suggest that 1) recovery of BODIPY FL fluorescence constitutes a useful surrogate marker of the acyl hydrazone cleavage in ALFR, 2) the acyl hydrazone linker is stable at pH 7 but increasingly less stable as pH decreases, and 3) cleavage of the acyl hydrazone is reasonably rapid between pH 4 and 5.
|
|
Measurement of the pH of FR-Containing Endosomes. Lack of measurable cleavage of the ALFR conjugate in KB cells was unexpected in view of a previous article from our laboratory (Lee et al., 1996
) reporting the pH of FR-containing endosomes ranging from 4.7 to 5.8 in the same KB cell line. However, because this previous pH analysis was obtained using a polymeric dye conjugate tethered to multiple folates and because polyvalent ligands have been subsequently shown to force GPI-anchored receptors to enter and traffic in cells by a distinct pathway (Fivaz et al., 2002
), we recharacterized the intracellular pH of folate-containing endosomes using monovalent folate-dye conjugates. For this purpose, we incubated KB cells with a solution containing equimolar quantities of folate-FITC (a pH-sensitive dye conjugate) and folate-rhodamine (a pH-insensitive dye conjugate) and then measured endosomal pH by quantitating the ratio of green (fluorescein) to red (rhodamine) fluorescence in each endocytic vesicle. By comparing this ratio to the same ratio obtained for the same solution of dye conjugates in standard buffers (Fig. 3G), an estimate of intraendosomal pH could be obtained. As shown in Fig. 3, E and F, folate-FITC and folate rhodamine were both seen to internalize and cluster in the perinuclear region where previous monovalent folate-dye conjugates have been reported to collect (Chatterjee et al., 2001
). However, due to quenching of FITC at low pH, some endosomes exhibited primarily rhodamine fluorescence, suggesting some decline in pH between FR on the cell surface and FR in the perinuclear endosomes. Ratiometric analysis revealed that the pH of FR-containing endosomes ranged from 5.6 to 7.2, with the most prominent pH values ranging from pH 6.6 to 6.8 (Fig. 4). This unexpectedly high compartmental pH range alone is probably sufficient to explain the very slow rate of ALFR hydrolysis in KB cells (compare Fig. 2). The results are also consistent with the observation that FR traffics through recycling endosomes that are known to have a pH of only 6.5 (Turek et al., 1993
; Mayor et al., 1998
; Chatterjee et al., 2001
).
|
| Discussion |
|---|
|
|
|---|
pH 6.66.8) argued that acyl hydrazone hydrolysis during FR-mediated endocytosis was highly inefficient largely because FR+ endosomal pH values are too high to catalyze ALFR cleavage efficiently. The data also suggest that pH-sensitive linkers that release their therapeutic cargo only slowly between pH 6 and 7 may not enable maximal intracellular release of drugs from monovalent folate-drug conjugates. However, acid-labile spacers that hydrolyze rapidly within this pH range may yield effective folate conjugates if the targeted therapeutic agent can reach an FR on the tumor cell surface before it is hydrolyzed in the plasma (Leamon et al., 2006
The finding that FR-containing endosomes do not experience low pH values distinguishes them from many other endocytic pathways. In general, endosome acidification is thought to occur within 2 to 3 min following receptor-mediated endocytosis due to an influx of protons via a vacuolar proton ATPase (Grabe and Oster, 2001
; Beyenbach and Wieczorek, 2006
; Hurtado-Lorenzo et al., 2006
). As a result, the pH of early endosomes, sorting endosomes, and multivesicular bodies can drop rapidly to
pH 6.0 and below, allowing nonrecycling ligands (e.g., low-density lipoprotein, etc.) to dissociate from their receptors and sort into late endosomes (
pH 5.5) and lysosomes (
pH 5.0). Acidic conditions in the lysosomal system are then thought to facilitate protein denaturation and degradation (McCoy and Schwartz, 1988
; Chapman, 2006
). In contrast to such nonrecycling receptors, trafficking of recycling receptors is thought to proceed through a distinct sorting compartment, also known as the recycling center, before returning to the plasma membrane for reuse. Unlike lysosomes, these recycling compartments have been demonstrated to have pH values between 6 and 7 (Maxfield and McGraw, 2004
). The fact that the FR endocytic pathway is characterized by compartmental pH values in this range can now be viewed as consistent with the fact that FR does not traffic to lysosomes but rather is recycled back to the cell surface for further use. It is noteworthy that this pH gradient along the FR endocytic pathway is conducive to folate acquisition by mammalian cells. Thus, unlike folic acid, which remains bound to FR throughout the endocytic pathway, 5-methyltetrahydrofolate, the common form of folate in the body, rapidly looses its affinity for FR upon endosomal acidification and is consequently released into the cytosol where it participates in various biological processes.
Finally, as noted above, when Lee et al. (1996
) employed polymeric folate conjugates derivatized with multiple folates to measure the pH in FR+ endosomes, they observed pH values between pH 4.7 and 5.8, with the most frequent pH value around 5.0. It is noteworthy that subsequent research from other laboratories (Fivaz et al., 2002
) has now shown that multivalent ligands traffic rapidly to late endosomes/lysosomes where the pH is normally in the range measured by Lee et al. (1996
). This observation not only explains the apparent discrepancy between the data from Lee et al. (1996
) and our own data but it also suggests that the choice of a releasable linker for folate-targeted drug delivery should be guided by the valence of the conjugate employed. Whenever a multivalent folate conjugate, such as a dendrimer (Choi et al., 2005
; Majoros et al., 2006
), liposome (Reddy and Low, 2000
; Shi et al., 2002
; Sudimack et al., 2002
), or lipoplex (Xu et al., 2001
), is to be constructed, a pH-sensitive linker may prove optimal for efficient drug release. In contrast, where a monovalent folate conjugate is to be delivered, a disulfide-linked conjugate (Yang et al., 2006
) should provide superior intracellular drug delivery.
| Acknowledgements |
|---|
| Footnotes |
|---|
ABBREVIATIONS: FR, folate receptor; FRET, fluorescence resonance energy transfer; BODIPY FL, 6-((4,4-difluoro-5,7-dimethyl-4-bora-3a,4adiaza-s-indacene-3-propionyl)amino)hexanoic acid, fluorescein; GPI, glycophosphoinositol; FITC, fluorescein isothiocyanate; ALFR, acid-labile folate-FRET reporter; Fmoc, N-(9-fluorenyl)methoxycarbonyl; HPLC, high-performance liquid chromatography; LC, liquid chromatography; MS, mass spectrometry.
The online version of this article (available at http://jpet.aspetjournals.org) contains supplemental material. ![]()
1 Current affiliation: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee. ![]()
Address correspondence to: Dr. Philip S. Low, Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. E-mail: plow{at}purdue.edu
| References |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Abramoff MD, Magalhaes PJ, and Ram SJ (2004) Image processing with ImageJ. Biophotonics International 11: 3642.
Appleman LJ and Frey AB (1996) Tumors antigens encoded by oncogenes and the impact of oncogenes upon the immune responses. Cell Immunol 170: 110.[CrossRef][Medline]
Ashby BS (1966) pH studies in human malignant tumours. Lancet 2: 312315.[Medline]
Beyenbach KW and Wieczorek H (2006) The V-type H+ ATPase: molecular structure and function, physiological roles and regulation. J Exp Biol 209: 577589.
Chapman HA (2006) Endosomal proteases in antigen presentation. Curr Opin Immunol 18: 7884.[CrossRef][Medline]
Chatterjee S, Smith ER, Hanada K, Stevens VL, and Mayor S (2001) GPI anchoring leads to sphingolipid-dependent retention of endocytosed proteins in the recycling endosomal compartment. EMBO (Eur Mol Biol Organ) J 20: 15831592.[CrossRef][Medline]
Choi Y, Thomas T, Kotlyar A, Islam MT, and Baker JR Jr (2005) Synthesis and functional evaluation of DNA-assembled polyamidoamine dendrimer clusters for cancer cell-specific targeting. Chem Biol 12: 3543.[CrossRef][Medline]
Elnakat H and Ratnam M (2004) Distribution, functionality and gene regulation of folate receptor isoforms: implications in targeted therapy. Adv Drug Deliv Rev 56: 10671084.[CrossRef][Medline]
Fivaz M, Vilbois F, Thurnheer S, Pasquali C, Abrami L, Bickel PE, Parton RG, and van der Goot FG (2002) Differential sorting and fate of endocytosed GPI-anchored proteins. EMBO (Eur Mol Biol Organ) J 21: 39894000.[CrossRef][Medline]
Gatenby RA, Gawlinski ET, Gmitro AF, Kaylor B, and Gillies RJ (2006) Acid-mediated tumor invasion: a multidisciplinary study. Cancer Res 66: 52165223.
Grabe M and Oster G (2001) Regulation of organelle acidity. J Gen Physiol 117: 329344.
Gutowski MC, Briggs SL, and Johnson DA (1991) Epidermal growth factor receptor-reactive monoclonal antibodies: xenograft antitumor activity alone and as drug immunoconjugates. Cancer Res 51: 54715475.
Hilgenbrink AR and Low PS (2005) Folate receptor-mediated drug targeting: from therapeutics to diagnostics. J Pharm Sci 94: 21352146.[CrossRef][Medline]
Hurtado-Lorenzo A, Skinner M, El Annan J, Futai M, Sun-Wada GH, Bourgoin S, Casanova J, Wildeman A, Bechoua S, Ausiello DA, et al. (2006) V-ATPase interacts with ARNO and Arf6 in early endosomes and regulates the protein degradative pathway. Nat Cell Biol 8: 124136.[CrossRef][Medline]
Jackman AL, Theti DS, and Gibbs DD (2004) Antifolates targeted specifically to the folate receptor. Adv Drug Deliv Rev 56: 11111125.[CrossRef][Medline]
Johnson DA, Baker AL, Laguzza BC, Fix DV, and Gutowski MC (1990) Antitumor activity of L/1C24-desacetylvinblastine-3-carboxhydrazide immunoconjugate in xenografts. Cancer Res 50: 17901794.
Kamen BA and Smith AK (2004) A review of folate receptor alpha cycling and 5-methyltetrahydrofolate accumulation with an emphasis on cell models in vitro. Adv Drug Deliv Rev 56: 10851097.[CrossRef][Medline]
Kaneko T, Willner D, Monkovic I, Knipe JO, Braslawsky GR, Greenfield RS, and Vyas DM (1991) New hydrazone derivatives of adriamycin and their immunoconjugatesa correlation between acid stability and cytotoxicity. Bioconjug Chem 2: 133141.[CrossRef][Medline]
Kratz F, Beyer U, and Schutte MT (1999) Drug-polymer conjugates containing acid-cleavable bonds. Crit Rev Ther Drug Carrier Syst 16: 245288.[Medline]
Laguzza BC, Nichols CL, Briggs SL, Cullinan GJ, Johnson DA, Starling JJ, Baker AL, Bumol TF, and Corvalan JR (1989) New antitumor monoclonal antibody-vinca conjugates LY203725 and related compounds: design, preparation, and representative in vivo activity. J Med Chem 32: 548555.[CrossRef][Medline]
Lavie E, Hirschberg DL, Schreiber G, Thor K, Hill L, Hellstrom I, and Hellstrom KE (1991) Monoclonal antibody L6-daunomycin conjugates constructed to release free drug at the lower pH of tumor tissue. Cancer Immunol Immunother 33: 223230.[CrossRef][Medline]
Leamon CP, Parker MA, Vlahov IR, Xu LC, Reddy JA, Vetzel M, and Douglas N (2002) Synthesis and biological evaluation of EC20: a new folate-derived, (99m)Tc-based radiopharmaceutical. Bioconjug Chem 13: 12001210.[CrossRef][Medline]
Leamon CP and Reddy JA (2004) Folate-targeted chemotherapy. Adv Drug Deliv Rev 56: 11271141.[CrossRef][Medline]
Leamon CP, Reddy JA, Vlahov IR, Kleindl PJ, Vetzel M, and Westrick E (2006) Synthesis and biological evaluation of EC140: a novel folate-targeted vinca alkaloid conjugate. Bioconjug Chem 17: 12261232.[CrossRef][Medline]
Lee RJ, Wang S, and Low PS (1996) Measurement of endosome pH following folate receptor-mediated endocytosis. Biochim Biophys Acta 1312: 237242.[Medline]
Lu Y, Sega E, Leamon CP, and Low PS (2004) Folate receptor-targeted immunotherapy of cancer: mechanism and therapeutic potential. Adv Drug Deliv Rev 56: 11611176.[CrossRef][Medline]
Majoros IJ, Myc A, Thomas T, Mehta CB, and Baker JR Jr (2006) PAMAM dendrimer-based multifunctional conjugate for cancer therapy: synthesis, characterization, and functionality. Biomacromolecules 7: 572579.[CrossRef][Medline]
Masson C, Garinot M, Mignet N, Wetzer B, Mailhe P, Scherman D, and Bessodes M (2004) pH-sensitive PEG lipids containing orthoester linkers: new potential tools for nonviral gene delivery. J Control Release 99: 423434.[CrossRef][Medline]
Maxfield FR and McGraw TE (2004) Endocytic recycling. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 5: 121132.[CrossRef][Medline]
Mayor S, Sabharanjak S, and Maxfield FR (1998) Cholesterol-dependent retention of GPI-anchored proteins in endosomes. EMBO (Eur Mol Biol Organ) J 17: 46264638.[CrossRef][Medline]
McCoy KL and Schwartz RH (1988) The role of intracellular acidification in antigen processing. Immunol Rev 106: 129147.[CrossRef][Medline]
Paulos CM, Reddy JA, Leamon CP, Turk MJ, and Low PS (2004) Ligand binding and kinetics of folate receptor recycling in vivo: impact on receptor-mediated drug delivery. Mol Pharmacol 66: 14061414.
Reddy JA, Allagadda VM, and Leamon CP (2005) Targeting therapeutic and imaging agents to folate receptor positive tumors. Curr Pharm Biotechnol 6: 131150.[CrossRef][Medline]
Reddy JA and Low PS (2000) Enhanced folate receptor mediated gene therapy using a novel pH-sensitive lipid formulation. J Control Release 64: 2737.[CrossRef][Medline]
Sabharanjak S and Mayor S (2004) Folate receptor endocytosis and trafficking. Adv Drug Deliv Rev 56: 10991109.[CrossRef][Medline]
Shi G, Guo W, Stephenson SM, and Lee RJ (2002) Efficient intracellular drug and gene delivery using folate receptor-targeted pH-sensitive liposomes composed of cationic/anionic lipid combinations. J Control Release 80: 309319.[CrossRef][Medline]
Sudimack JJ, Guo W, Tjarks W, and Lee RJ (2002) A novel pH-sensitive liposome formulation containing oleyl alcohol. Biochim Biophys Acta 1564: 3137.[Medline]
Trail PA, Willner D, Lasch SJ, Henderson AJ, Greenfield RS, King D, Zoeckler ME, and Braslawsky GR (1992) Antigen-specific activity of carcinoma-reactive BR64-doxorubicin conjugates evaluated in vitro and in human tumor xenograft models. Cancer Res 52: 56935700.
Turek JJ, Leamon CP, and Low PS (1993) Endocytosis of folate-protein conjugates: ultrastructural localization in KB cells. J Cell Sci 106: 423430.[Abstract]
Xu L, Pirollo KF, and Chang EH (2001) Tumor-targeted p53-gene therapy enhances the efficacy of conventional chemo/radiotherapy. J Control Release 74: 115128.[CrossRef][Medline]
Yang J, Chen H, Vlahov IR, Cheng JX, and Low PS (2006) Evaluation of disulfide reduction during receptor-mediated endocytosis by using FRET imaging. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103: 1387213877.
Zhao XB and Lee RJ (2004) Tumor-selective targeted delivery of genes and antisense oligodeoxyribonucleotides via the folate receptor. Adv Drug Deliv Rev 56: 11931204.[CrossRef][Medline]
This article has been cited by other articles:
![]() |
E. S. Unal, R. Zhao, M.-H. Chang, A. Fiser, M. F. Romero, and I. D. Goldman The Functional Roles of the His247 and His281 Residues in Folate and Proton Translocation Mediated by the Human Proton-coupled Folate Transporter SLC46A1 J. Biol. Chem., June 26, 2009; 284(26): 17846 - 17857. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
R. Zhao, S. H. Min, Y. Wang, E. Campanella, P. S. Low, and I. D. Goldman A Role for the Proton-coupled Folate Transporter (PCFT-SLC46A1) in Folate Receptor-mediated Endocytosis J. Biol. Chem., February 13, 2009; 284(7): 4267 - 4274. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
A. Qiu, S. H. Min, M. Jansen, U. Malhotra, E. Tsai, D. C. Cabelof, L. H. Matherly, R. Zhao, M. H. Akabas, and I. D. Goldman Rodent intestinal folate transporters (SLC46A1): secondary structure, functional properties, and response to dietary folate restriction Am J Physiol Cell Physiol, November 1, 2007; 293(5): C1669 - C1678. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||