Type I collagen–targeted PET probe for pulmonary fibrosis detection and staging in preclinical models

P Désogère, LF Tapias, LP Hariri, NJ Rotile… - Science translational …, 2017 - science.org
P Désogère, LF Tapias, LP Hariri, NJ Rotile, TA Rietz, CK Probst, F Blasi, H Day…
Science translational medicine, 2017science.org
Pulmonary fibrosis is scarring of the lungs that can arise from radiation injury, drug toxicity,
environmental or genetic causes, and for unknown reasons [idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
(IPF)]. Overexpression of collagen is a hallmark of organ fibrosis. We describe a peptide-
based positron emission tomography (PET) probe (68Ga-CBP8) that targets collagen type I.
We evaluated 68Ga-CBP8 in vivo in the bleomycin-induced mouse model of pulmonary
fibrosis. 68Ga-CBP8 showed high specificity for pulmonary fibrosis and high …
Pulmonary fibrosis is scarring of the lungs that can arise from radiation injury, drug toxicity, environmental or genetic causes, and for unknown reasons [idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF)]. Overexpression of collagen is a hallmark of organ fibrosis. We describe a peptide-based positron emission tomography (PET) probe (68Ga-CBP8) that targets collagen type I. We evaluated 68Ga-CBP8 in vivo in the bleomycin-induced mouse model of pulmonary fibrosis. 68Ga-CBP8 showed high specificity for pulmonary fibrosis and high target/background ratios in diseased animals. The lung PET signal and lung 68Ga-CBP8 uptake (quantified ex vivo) correlated linearly (r2 = 0.80) with the amount of lung collagen in mice with fibrosis. We further demonstrated that the 68Ga-CBP8 probe could be used to monitor response to treatment in a second mouse model of pulmonary fibrosis associated with vascular leak. Ex vivo analysis of lung tissue from patients with IPF supported the animal findings. These studies indicate that 68Ga-CBP8 is a promising candidate for noninvasive imaging of human pulmonary fibrosis.
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