학술논문
Evaluating the Performance of Pathogen-Targeted Positron Emission Tomography Radiotracers in a Rat Model of Vertebral Discitis-Osteomyelitis
Document Type
article
Author
Parker, Matthew FL; López-Álvarez, Marina; Alanizi, Aryn A; Luu, Justin M; Polvoy, Ilona; Sorlin, Alexandre M; Qin, Hecong; Lee, Sanghee; Rabbitt, Sarah J; Pichardo-González, Priamo A; Ordonez, Alvaro A; Blecha, Joseph; Rosenberg, Oren S; Flavell, Robert R; Engel, Joanne; Jain, Sanjay K; Ohliger, Michael A; Wilson, David M
Source
The Journal of Infectious Diseases. 228(Supplement_4)
Subject
Language
Abstract
BackgroundVertebral discitis-osteomyelitis (VDO) is a devastating infection of the spine that is challenging to distinguish from noninfectious mimics using computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. We and others have developed novel metabolism-targeted positron emission tomography (PET) radiotracers for detecting living Staphylococcus aureus and other bacteria in vivo, but their head-to-head performance in a well-validated VDO animal model has not been reported.MethodsWe compared the performance of several PET radiotracers in a rat model of VDO. [11C]PABA and [18F]FDS were assessed for their ability to distinguish S aureus, the most common non-tuberculous pathogen VDO, from Escherichia coli.ResultsIn the rat S aureus VDO model, [11C]PABA could detect as few as 103 bacteria and exhibited the highest signal-to-background ratio, with a 20-fold increased signal in VDO compared to uninfected tissues. In a proof-of-concept experiment, detection of bacterial infection and discrimination between S aureus and E coli was possible using a combination of [11C]PABA and [18F]FDS.ConclusionsOur work reveals that several bacteria-targeted PET radiotracers had sufficient signal to background in a rat model of S aureus VDO to be potentially clinically useful. [11C]PABA was the most promising tracer investigated and warrants further investigation in human VDO.