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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Olof Eriksson

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Guest Editor

Science for Life Laboratory, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Division of Molecular Imaging, Uppsala University, 75123 Uppsala, Sweden
Interests: beta cell mass; drug development; inflammation; medical imaging; metabolic disease; molecular imaging; neuroendocrine tumors; positron emission tomography (PET); radiopharmaceuticals; translational studies

Dr. Daniel Espes

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1. Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, 75185 Uppsala, Sweden
2. Department of Medical Cell Biology, Uppsala University, 75123 Uppsala, Sweden
Interests: type 1 diabetes; beta-cell physiology; translational medicine; cellular therapies; beta-cell imaging; positron emission tomography (PET)

Prof. Gunnar Antoni

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Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Interests: PET radiochemistry; preclinical PET; clinical PET; tracer development; inflammation and fibrosis

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, there has been significant progress in the molecular understanding of several metabolic diseases, including type 1 and type 2 diabetes. In the experimental setting, we are able to reverse both induced and spontaneously developed diabetes in several animal models. However, a cure for human diabetes still eludes us, presumably due to critical discrepancies between the molecular basis of metabolic disease in humans as compared to our animal models. Non-invasive molecular imaging techniques, e.g., positron emission tomography (PET), offer a potential solution to improve the understanding of the etiology of metabolic disease by enabling direct and longitudinal in vivo studies of critical molecular processes involved, e.g., hormone receptors, insulin resistance, beta cell mass and physiology, etc. The field of molecular imaging has been revolutionized during the last 20 years, but so far, this has not been fully utilized in the study of diabetes. This Special Issue focuses on recent progress in understanding the molecular basis of metabolic disease utilizing PET.

We welcome original research and review articles on metabolic disease in the field of molecular imaging.

Prof. Gunnar Antoni
Dr. Daniel Espes
Dr. Olof Eriksson
Guest Editors

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Keywords

Positron emission tomography (PET)
Molecular imaging
Beta cells
Diabetes
Metabolic disease
Metabolism
Inflammation
Radiochemistry
Hormone receptors
Drug mode of action

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 2673 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Quantitative Assessment of Arthritis Activity in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients Using [¹¹C]DPA-713 Positron Emission Tomography

by Maqsood Yaqub, Nicki J.F. Verweij, Simone Pieplenbosch, Ronald Boellaard, Adriaan A. Lammertsma and Conny J. van der Laken

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21(9), 3137; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21093137 - 29 Apr 2020

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1878

Abstract

Treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) should be started as early as possible to prevent destruction of bone and cartilage in affected joints. A new diagnostic tool for both early diagnosis and therapy monitoring would be valuable to reduce permanent joint damage. Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of macrophages is a previously demonstrated non-invasive means to visualize (sub)clinical arthritis in RA patients. We developed a kinetic model to quantify uptake of the macrophage tracer [¹¹C]DPA-713 (N,N-diethyl-2-[2-(4-methoxyphenyl)-5,7-dimethylpyrazolo [1,5-a]pyrimidin-3-yl]acetamide) in arthritic joints of RA patients and to assess the performance of several simplified methods. Dynamic [¹¹C]DPA-713 scans of 60 min with both arterial and venous blood sampling were performed in five patients with clinically active disease. [¹¹C]DPA-713 showed enhanced uptake in affected joints of RA patients, with tracer uptake levels corresponding to clinical presence and severity of arthritis. The optimal quantitative model for assessment of [¹¹C]DPA-713 uptake was the irreversible two tissue compartment model (2T3k). Both K_i and standardized uptake value (SUV) correlated with the presence of arthritis in RA patients. Using SUV as an outcome measure allows for a simplified static imaging protocol that can be used in larger cohorts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Molecular Imaging in Understanding Metabolic Disease)

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Review

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29 pages, 1730 KiB

Open AccessReview

Beta Cell Imaging—From Pre-Clinical Validation to First in Man Testing

by Stephane Demine, Michael L. Schulte, Paul R. Territo and Decio L. Eizirik

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21(19), 7274; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21197274 - 01 Oct 2020

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3364

Abstract

There are presently no reliable ways to quantify human pancreatic beta cell mass (BCM) in vivo, which prevents an accurate understanding of the progressive beta cell loss in diabetes or following islet transplantation. Furthermore, the lack of beta cell imaging hampers the evaluation of the impact of new drugs aiming to prevent beta cell loss or to restore BCM in diabetes. We presently discuss the potential value of BCM determination as a cornerstone for individualized therapies in diabetes, describe the presently available probes for human BCM evaluation, and discuss our approach for the discovery of novel beta cell biomarkers, based on the determination of specific splice variants present in human beta cells. This has already led to the identification of DPP6 and FXYD2γa as two promising targets for human BCM imaging, and is followed by a discussion of potential safety issues, the role for radiochemistry in the improvement of BCM imaging, and concludes with an overview of the different steps from pre-clinical validation to a first-in-man trial for novel tracers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Molecular Imaging in Understanding Metabolic Disease)

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