Oral squamous
cancers (OSC) are hallmarked by poor prognosis, delayed clinical detection, and a lack of defined, characteristic
biomarkers. By screening combinatorial one-bead one-compound (OBOC)
peptide libraries against oral squamous
cancer cell lines, two
cyclic peptide ligands, LLY12 and LLY13 were previously identified. These
ligands are capable of specific binding to the
oral cancer cell lines (MOK-101, HSC-3, SCC-4 and SCC-10a) but not non-cancerous keratinocytes, leukocytes, fibroblast, and endothelial cells. These two
peptides were synthesized and evaluated for their binding property, cytotoxicity and cell permeability. In vitro studies indicate that both LLY12 and LLY13 were able to bind to
oral cancer cells with high specificity but did not show any cytotoxicity against human keratinocytes. Biotinylated LLY13, in complex with streptavidin-alexa488 was taken up by live
oral cancer cells, thus rendering it as an excellent candidate vehicle for efficient delivery of
drug loaded-nanoparticles. In vivo and ex vivo near infra-red fluorescence imaging studies confirmed the in vivo targeting efficiency and specificity of LLY13 in
oral cancer orthotopic murine xenograft model. In vivo studies also showed that LLY13 was able to accumulate in the OSC
tumors and demarcate the
tumor margins in orthotopic xenograft model. Together, our data supports LLY13 as a promising
theranostic agent against OSC.