Mathias Elgland
Published: 2018-02-21
Total Pages: 125
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Positron emission tomography (PET) is a non-invasive imaging method that renders three-dimensional images of tissue that selectively has taken up a radiolabelled organic compound, referred to as a radiotracer. This excellent technique provides clinicians with a tool to monitor disease progression and to evaluate how the patient respond to treatment. The by far most widely employed radiotracer in PET is called 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose ([18F]FDG), which is often referred to as the golden standard in PET. From a molecular perspective, [18F]FDG is an analogue of glucose where a hydroxyl group has been replaced with a radioactive fluorine atom (18F). It is well known that covalent attachment of carbohydrates (i.e., glycosylation) to biomolecules tend to improve their properties in the body, in terms of; improved pharmacokinetics, increased metabolic stability and faster clearance from blood and other non-specific tissue. It is therefore natural to pursuit the development of a [18F]fluoroglycosylation method where [18F]FDG is chemically conjugated to a ligand with high affinity for a given biological target (e.g., tumors or disease-associated protein aggregates). This thesis describes a novel [18F]fluoroglycosylation method that in a simple and general manner facilitate the conjugation of [18F]FDG to biological ligands using click chemistry. The utility of the developed [18F]fluoroglycosylation method is demonstrated by radiolabelling of curcumin, thus forming a tracer that may be employed for diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Moreover, a set of oligothiophenes were fluoroglycosylated for potential diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease but also for other much rarer protein misfolding diseases (e.g., Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and systemic amyloidosis). In addition, the synthesis of a series of 19F-fluoroglycosylated porphyrins is described which exhibited promising properties not only to detect but also to treat melanoma cancer. Lastly, the synthesis of a set of 19F-fluorinated E-stilbenes, structurally based on the antioxidant resveratrol is presented. The E-stilbenes were evaluated for their capacity to spectrally distinguish between native and protofibrillar transthyretin in the pursuit of finding diagnostic markers for the rare but severe disease, transthyretin amyloidosis.
