[18F]UCB-H AS A NEW PET RADIOTRACER FOR SYNAPTIC VESICLE PROTEIN 2A

Synaptic vesicle protein 2A (SV2A) is widely distributed in the brain and has been demonstrated to be involved in vesicle trafficking. The critical role of SV2A in proper nervous system function is shown, for example, by the fact that it is a binding site and the primary mechanism of levetiracetam. Levetiracetam is an antiepileptic drug which has recently been suggested to reduce synaptic deficits in a mouse model for Alzheimer’s disease and to improve cognition in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment. We here aimed to investigate the cerebral distribution of [18F]UCB-H, a fluorine-18 radiolabelled PET imaging tracer, which has a high affinity with the SV2A.
[18F]UCB-H was radiosynthesized under GMP conditions. Dynamic PET data of the head of four healthy volunteers were acquired over 100 minutes after injection of 170.4 ± 24.9 MBq of [18F]UCB-H. The arterial input function was obtained by blood sampling during the dynamic PET acquisition.
The analysis of the blood data reveled a consistent amount of [18F]UCB-H in whole blood and plasma which indicates a very low degree of binding of the tracer to the red blood cells. The unchanged fraction of [18F]UCB-H in plasma showed a bi-exponential behavioral decrease with a starting fraction of 92% of the injected amount of the tracer, measured at 3 min post injection. This fraction decreased to about 50% at 10 min post injection. The [18F]UCB-H PET data showed a high and rapid uptake in the grey matter structures, matching the known ubiquitous distribution of the SV2A in the brain. The kinetics of the tracer in the brain was characterized by an initial high uptake phase followed by rapid washout allowing the standard compartmental modeling (1-tissue compartment, 2-tissue compartment, and Logan graphical analysis). The three models gave consistent results. The two-tissue compartment model fitted the experimental data best and provided a total distribution volume of the [18F]UCB-H in the brain greater than 7 mL/cm3 and a specific distribution volume around 3 mL/cm3.
Our results suggest that [18F]UCB-H is a good candidate as radiotracer for brain SV2A proteins and could be used for human studies. In the future, SV2A modifications might be assessed in neurological pathologies such as Alzheimer’s disease.