Development of amyloid oligomer imaging for early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease

• Project/Area Number: 17K19455
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Neuroscience and related fields
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: Ono Masahiro 京都大学, 薬学研究科, 教授 (80336180)
• Research Collaborator: WATANABE Hiroyuki
• Project Period (FY): 2017-06-30 – 2019-03-31
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2018)
• Budget Amount: ¥6,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥5,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,500,000); Fiscal Year 2018: ¥3,640,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥840,000); Fiscal Year 2017: ¥2,860,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥660,000)
• Keywords: βアミロイド / オリゴマー / イメージング / アルツハイマー病 / アミロイド

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In recent research regarding the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease, highly toxic oligomers of β-amyloid (Aβ) peptides has gained much attention. However, there have been no reports regarding the development of PET imaging probes that can specifically image Aβ oligomers in vivo. The objective of the present study was to develop novel in vivo imaging technique targeting Aβ oligomers. In this study, we planned to design and synthesize some candidate compounds, and evaluate in vitro experiments on binding affinity to Aβ aggregates and in vivo experiments using transgenic mice that overexpressed Aβ aggregates.

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

Aβオリゴマーを特異的に検出できるPETトレーサーが開発できれば、現在のAβ用PETトレーサーで問題となっている擬陽性の診断も改善され、高い精度でアルツハイマー病のPET画像診断が可能になると考えられ、その予防、診断、治療、病態研究に新たな指針を与える。