Positron Emission Tomography in Animal Models of Tauopathies

Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

Lei Cao¹  Bin Ji²  Yutong Ren³  Ruiqing Ni⁴  Yihui Guan⁶  Yanyan Kong⁶ 

[1] Changes Technology Corporation Ltd., Shanghai, China;Department of Radiopharmacy and Molecular Imaging, School of Pharmacy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China;Guangdong Robotics Association, Guangzhou, China;Institute for Biomedical Engineering, ETH Zurich and University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland;Institute for Regenerative Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland;PET Center, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China;

关键词: Alzheimer’s disease;    tau;    animal model;    positron emission tomography;    FTD (fronto-temporal dementia);    neurotransmitter;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fnagi.2021.761913

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The microtubule-associated protein tau (MAPT) plays an important role in Alzheimer’s disease and primary tauopathy diseases. The abnormal accumulation of tau contributes to the development of neurotoxicity, inflammation, neurodegeneration, and cognitive deficits in tauopathy diseases. Tau synergically interacts with amyloid-beta in Alzheimer’s disease leading to detrimental consequence. Thus, tau has been an important target for therapeutics development for Alzheimer’s disease and primary tauopathy diseases. Tauopathy animal models recapitulating the tauopathy such as transgenic, knock-in mouse and rat models have been developed and greatly facilitated the understanding of disease mechanisms. The advance in PET and imaging tracers have enabled non-invasive detection of the accumulation and spread of tau, the associated microglia activation, metabolic, and neurotransmitter receptor alterations in disease animal models. In vivo microPET studies on mouse or rat models of tauopathy have provided significant insights into the phenotypes and time course of pathophysiology of these models and allowed the monitoring of treatment targeting at tau. In this study, we discuss the utilities of PET and recently developed tracers for evaluating the pathophysiology in tauopathy animal models. We point out the outstanding challenges and propose future outlook in visualizing tau-related pathophysiological changes in brain of tauopathy disease animal models.

【 授权许可】

Unknown