Radiolabeled Antibodies for Immune Checkpoint PET in Preclinical Research

Antibodies that block immune checkpoints, also called immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI), have demonstrated impressive anti-tumor efficacy. The success of ICIs results from a complex interplay between cancer cells and their immune microenvironment. One of the predictors for ICI efficacy is the expression of the targeted immune checkpoint, such as programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1). Immune checkpoints can be expressed on tumor cells and/or subsets of immune cells. PET imaging offers unique possibilities to study the dynamics of immune checkpoint expression in tumor and normal tissues in a longitudinal manner. In this chapter, we describe the methodology to use zirconium-89-labeled antibodies to assess the expression of immune checkpoint molecules in syngeneic murine tumor models by PET imaging.