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Investigation of 6-[18F]-Fluoromaltose as a Novel PET Tracer for Imaging Bacterial Infection

2014; Public Library of Science; Volume: 9; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1371/journal.pone.0107951

1932-6203

Gayatri Gowrishankar, Mohammad Namavari, Erwan Jouannot, Aileen Hoehne, Robert E. Reeves, Jonathan Hardy, Sanjiv S. Gambhir,

Infective Endocarditis Diagnosis and Management

Despite advances in the field of nuclear medicine, the imaging of bacterial infections has remained a challenge. The existing reagents suffer from poor sensitivity and specificity. In this study we investigate the potential of a novel PET (positron emission tomography) tracer that overcomes these limitations.6-[¹⁸F]-fluoromaltose was synthesized. Its behavior in vitro was evaluated in bacterial and mammalian cultures. Detailed pharmacokinetic and biodistribution profiles for the tracer were obtained from a murine model.6-[¹⁸F]-fluoromaltose is taken up by multiple strains of pathogenic bacteria. It is not taken up by mammalian cancer cell lines. 6-[¹⁸F]-fluoromaltose is retained in infected muscles in a murine model of bacterial myositis. It does not accumulate in inflamed tissue.We have shown that 6-[¹⁸F]-fluoromaltose can be used to image bacterial infection in vivo with high specificity. We believe that this class of agents will have a significant impact on the clinical management of patients.