Video: Development of a radiopharmaceutical for imaging of Alzheimer´s disease

This post links a video on the Mediso USA's Youtube channel. The video describes the process of the development of a radiopharmaceutical for imaging of Alzheimer´s disease with positron emission tomography. The video was filmed at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendort Research Site Leipzig (www.hzdr.de) and Universität Leipzig.

The video showcases the nanoScan PET/MRI, small animal in vivo PET/MRI imaging system.The researchers used the system to prove that Flubatine, a candidate biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease, works in in-vivo as well!

The radio tracer [Fluor-18]Flubatine accelerates the early detection of Alzheimer’s dementia. This radioactively labeled substance, which is based on a compound found in South American poison arrow frogs, substantially shortens the examination period for Alzheimer’s. More specifically [Fluor-18]Flubatine is a promising agent for visualization by PET of cerebral α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), which are implicated in psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.

The video describes the process of the development of a radiopharmaceutical for imaging of Alzheimer´s disease with positron emission tomography. The toxin epibatidine, which was originally derived from a poison arrow frog, is known to bind to various subtypes of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. Those with an alpha1 subunit are mainly responsible for the toxic action, those with alpha4 and alpha7 subunits are important for Alzheimer´s disease. Structural modification allowed avoidance of the toxic action. The new molecule, called flubatine, contains fluorine in 6-position of a pyridine which was exchanged by the cyclotron-produced positron emitter fluorine-18. Successful in vitro and preclinical in vivo characterization of the radiolabelled flubatine allowed radiopharmaceutical production and use of the compound for PET imaging of patients with Alzheimer´s disease.

Video was originally posted at Beilstein TV.