TY - JOUR
AU - Joseph, Emanuel
AU - Kunze, Lea H
AU - Schaefer, Rebecca
AU - Palumbo, Giovanna
AU - Kugelmann, Benjamin
AU - Wagner, Stephan
AU - Lammich, Sven
AU - Feederle, Regina
AU - Willem, Michael
AU - Werner, Rudolf A
AU - Brendel, Matthias
AU - Lindner, Simon
TI - Design, Synthesis and Preclinical Evaluation of a Brain-Permeable PET Tracer for P2Y12 Receptor Imaging in the Brain.
JO - Journal of medicinal chemistry
VL - 68
IS - 15
SN - 0095-9065
CY - Washington, DC
PB - ACS
M1 - DZNE-2025-01041
SP - 15543 - 15562
PY - 2025
AB - Microglia, the innate immune cells of the central nervous system (CNS), act as first responders to brain injury. Their ability to switch between different neuroprotective and neurotoxic phenotypes, plays a central role in maintaining brain homeostasis. Recently, the P2Y12 receptor (P2Y12R) has been identified as a promising molecular biomarker for microglia activity, as its expression level is dependent on microglia phenotype and function. P2Y12R positron emission tomography (PET) might be a valuable diagnostic tool, however, tracers with sufficient brain retention have not been reported so far. Herein, we report a brain-permeable P2Y12R PET tracer for in vivo imaging of P2Y12R-positive microglia. Nicotinate [18F]12 exhibited nanomolar affinity and specificity for the target receptor and showed a reduced uptake in microglia-depleted (PLX) mice, in comparison to WT and Trem2 knockout (Trem2-/-) mice. Ex vivo immunohistochemistry (IHC) and PET data revealed a strong correlation between microglia abundance, P2Y12R expression levels and tracer uptake.
LB - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6 - pmid:40713021
C2 - pmc:PMC12362594
DO - DOI:10.1021/acs.jmedchem.5c00457
UR - https://pub.dzne.de/record/280959
ER -