Neuroinflammation appears early and then plateaus in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease shown by PET imaging.
Creators
- 1. Preclinical Imaging, Turku PET Centre, University of Turku, Turku, Finland and MediCity Research Laboratory, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
- 2. Preclinical Imaging, Turku PET Centre, University of Turku, Turku, Finland and MediCity Research Laboratory, University of Turku, Turku, Finland; Department of Chemistry, University of Turku, Turku Finland and Accelerator Laboratory, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland
- 3. Turku PET Centre, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland and Division of Clinical Neurosciences, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland
Description
Abstract
Rationale: Neuroinflammation has been associated with different neurological diseases including Alzheimer's disease (AD). In AD, the translocator protein 18kDa (TSPO) is overexpressed in the activated microglia that surround the β-amyloid plaques. In the current longitudinal study, using a mouse model of AD, we evaluated the association between β-amyloid deposition and neuroinflammation in AD.
Methods: To monitor the longitudinal changes in β-amyloid deposition and neuroinflammation, we used in vivo PET imaging and ex vivo autoradiography with 11C-PIB and a TSPO tracer, 18F-GE-180, in the APP23 mouse model of AD. We also applied immunohistochemistry to study β-amyloid and activated microglia in the mouse brain tissue.
Results: From 17 to 26 months of age, the mice showed robust increased binding of 11C-PIB with aging in the frontal cortex, parietotemporal cortex, hippocampus, and thalamus while the increase in 18F-GE-180 binding with aging was minimal in areas of early amyloidosis such as frontal cortex and hippocampus. A clear positive correlation between β-amyloid deposition and neuroinflammation was detected with 11C-PIB, and 18F-GE-180 was obtained only in the parietotemporal cortex and thalamus.
Conclusion: The neuroinflammation increase detected with 18F-GE-180 is less than the increase in amyloidosis detected with 11C-PIB. Furthermore, the binding of 18F-GE-180 plateaus at an earlier stage of pathogenesis whereas the amyloidosis continues to increase. We suggest that TSPO can be a good marker for early pathogenesis detection but not for tracking long-term disease progression.
Files
Restricted
The record is publicly accessible, but files are restricted to users with access.