Radiosynthesis of PET radiotracer as a prodrug for imaging group II metabotropic glutamate receptors in vivo

摘要

Group II metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) have been implicated in a variety of neurological and psychiatric disorders in recent studies. As a noninvasive medical imaging technique and a powerful tool in neurological research, positron emission tomography (PET) offers the possibility to visualize and study group II mGluRs in vivo under physiologic and pathologic conditions. We synthesized a PET tracer, (S,S,S)-2-(2-carboxycyclopropyl)-2-(3-[ 11C]methoxyphenethyl) glycine dimethyl ester ([ 11C]CMGDE), as a prodrug for group II mGluRs, and studied its preliminary biological properties in Sprague-Dawley rats to visualize group II mGluRs. The microPET studies demonstrated that [ 11C]CMGDE readily penetrated into the brain and the radiotracer generated from [ 11C]CMGDE had fast reversible binding in the group II mGluRs rich regions including striatum, hippocampus and different cortical areas. Blocking studies with LY341495 showed 20-30% decrease of binding of the radiotracer generated from [ 11C]CMGDE in all brain areas with the highest decrease in the striatum 31.5 ± 3.2%. The results show [ 11C]CMGDE is the first PET tracer that is brain penetrating and can be used to image group II mGluRs in vivo.