Background
Accumulation of tau protein is one of the main hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), along with amyloid deposition and astrocytosis. In recent years, several attempts have been made to develop positron emission tomography (PET) tracers that are able to visualize tau deposits in vivo.
The complexity of developing a ligand targeting tau protein is increased because of its intracellular location. The first compound used to target tau deposits in vivo was 2-(1-{6-[(2-[fluorine-18]fluoroethyl)(methyl)amino]-2-naphthyl}-ethylidene)malononitrile (FDDNP), which was developed as an amyloid tracer but also showed some binding to neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs). Unfortunately, because of its affinity for amyloid plaques and lack of selectivity to NFTs, FDDNP is not suitable for tau imaging [
1‐
3]. Recently, several tau PET tracers have been developed and tested in vitro and in preclinical imaging, showing good results and leading to their inclusion in clinical studies. In this study, we focused on the THK tracer family as well as PBB3 and T807. First,
11C-PBB3 has been reported to be a good candidate for in vivo PET imaging and autoradiography with
11C-PBB3 in PS19-transgenic mice, showing binding in the same area as the fluorescent Congo red derivative (
trans,
trans)-1-fluoro-2,5-bis(3-hydroxycarbonyl-4-hydroxy)styrylbenzene, indicating the presence of tau filaments [
4,
5]. Moreover, autoradiography experiments in human brain tissue showed binding to NFTs in the hippocampus and no colocalization with
11C-Pittsburgh compound B (PIB) [
4]. In vitro characterization of AV-1451 using autoradiography showed a good affinity for paired helical filaments (PHF-tau), as well as good colocalization, in comparison with PHF-tau immunohistochemistry, in addition to a correlation with the NFT deposition in the different Braak stages [
6‐
9]. Binding assay experiments performed on AD brain homogenates using
3H-THK5117 demonstrated several binding sites in both temporal and hippocampal regions [
10]. THK5117 and THK5351, the latest derivatives of the aryquinoline series, have shown good affinity for PHF-tau [
11]. THK5351, which is the
S-form of THK5151, has been reported to bind less than other tau tracers to white matter [
12,
13]. Because extensive in vitro data are available for all the tracers in AD brain tissue, some studies have been focused on non-AD tauopathies [
14]. In recent studies, both in vitro and in vivo experiments have shown that the different tau PET tracers bind to different tau deposits (
see [
15] for review). The tau protein can have either three repeats (3R) or four repeats (4R) of the microtubule-binding domain regarding inclusion or exclusion of exon 10 during alternative splicing. The affinity of the tracer appears to depend on the inclusion of 3R, 4R, or both [
16‐
19].
Off-target binding of the different tau tracers has been observed in regions poor in PHF-tau. The location of this off-target binding in the basal ganglia led some research groups to suggest the possibility of binding to monoamine oxidase (MAO) (
see [
15] for review). In a recent study done at McGill University, Ng et al. showed that pretreatment with selegiline, a MAO-B inhibitor, reduced the in vivo PET uptake of
18F-THK5351 [
20] and confirmed those results in vitro. Furthermore, our group recently showed that the affinity between MAO-B and THK5117 occurred at around 300 nM, implying that it should not affect the signal observed by PET [
21]. Previous in vitro studies have also indicated that T807 binds to MAO-A [
22,
23].
The aim of this study was to compare the two THK compounds THK5117 and THK5351 with T807 and PBB3 in head-to-head autoradiography and binding assay studies in the same human brain tissue. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the binding of 11C-THK5351 using autoradiography of large brain sections.
Methods
Chemicals
1-Fluoro-3-((2-(4-([3H]methylamino)phenyl)quinolin-6-yl)oxy)propan-2-ol (3H-THK5117; specific activity 2.2 GBq/μmol) and unlabeled THK5117 were custom-synthesized by Quotient Bioresearch/Pharmaron (Cardiff, UK). 3H-THK5351, 11C-THK5351 [(S)-1-fluoro-3-(2-(6-([11C]methylamino)pyridin-3-yl)quinolin-6-yloxy)propan-2-ol], 11C-PBB3 [(5-((1E,3E)-4-(6-[11C] methylamino)pyridin-3-yl)buta-1,3-dien-1-yl)benzo[d]thiazol-6-ol], and 18F-T807 [7-(6-[18F]fluoropyridin-3yl)-5H-pyrido(4,3-b)indole] were synthesized and labeled at the Centre for Psychiatric Research in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience (Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden). NO and MH provided the THK5351 and PBB3 precursors, respectively. Unlabeled T807 and tert-butyloxycarbonyl-protected precursors were synthesized by HT. (R)-(−)-deprenyl hydrochloride was purchased from Tocris Bioscience (Bristol, UK).
In vitro binding assay
Postmortem brain tissues from three patients with AD and three healthy control subjects were used for the in vitro binding assays. All the brain tissue, which came from the Netherlands Brain Bank, had been homogenized in PBS containing a protease/phosphatase inhibitor (
see Table
1).
Regional distribution comparison | AD | M | 78 | 5 | 4/4 | 6:35 |
F | 75 | 5 | 4/4 | 5:50 |
F | 81 | 5 | 4/3 | 6:15 |
Control | F | 77 | 1 | 3/3 | 2:55 |
F | 84 | 1 | 3/3 | 6:55 |
M | 81 | 2 | 3/3 | 7:55 |
3H-THK5351 competition study | AD | M | 77 | 6 | NA | 6:35 |
F | 86 | 6 | NA | 4:20 |
F | 75 | 5 | 4/4 | 5:50 |
3H-THK5351 saturation study | AD | F | 75 | 5 | 4/4 | 5:50 |
Large frozen section autoradiography | AD1 | N/A | 59 | N/A | 3/3 | 4:20 |
AD2 | N/A | 73 | N/A | 3/3 | 1:45 |
AD3 | N/A | 59 | N/A | 3/4 | 10:45 |
The saturation binding experiment was carried out using increasing concentrations of 3H-THK5351 (0.1–250 nM) in hippocampus AD brain homogenate (0.2 mg/ml) to determine the dissociation constant (K
d). Nonspecific binding was determined using 1 μM unlabeled THK5117. After 2-h incubation at room temperature, the binding assay was terminated by filtration through glass fiber filters presoaked for at least 3 h in 0.3% polyethylenimine. To do so, the filters were rinsed and filtered three times using cold binding buffer, and then the radiation on the filter was quantified using a scintillation counter (Beckman Coulter, Brea, CA, USA).
The regional binding distribution comparison between 3H-THK5351 and 3H-THK5117 was carried out in postmortem frontal and temporal cortical and hippocampal tissue from the brains of three patients with AD and three control subjects. The protocol was similar for 3H-THK5351 (1.5 nM) and 3H-THK5117 (3 nM): 0.1 mg of tissue in PBS + 0.1% bovine serum albumin (BSA) to a final volume of 500 μl, followed by incubation for 2 h at room temperature. The nonspecific binding was determined using 1 μM unlabeled THK5351 or unlabeled THK5117. After 2-h incubation at room temperature, the competition binding assay was stopped using filtration through glass fiber filters, and the radiation was then quantified using the scintillation counter.
Competition binding studies using postmortem hippocampus brain homogenate (0.2 mg/ml tissue) from three patients with AD were performed using 3H-THK5351 (1.5 nM) as well as increasing concentrations of unlabeled THK5351 (10−14 to 10−5 nM), THK5117 (10−14 to 10−5 nM), and T807 (10−14 to 10−5 nM), to determine the inhibition constant (K
i). After 2-h incubation at room temperature, the binding assay was terminated by filtration through glass fiber filters presoaked for at least 3 h in 0.3% polyethylenimine. To do so, the filters were rinsed and filtered three times using cold binding buffer, and then the radiation on the filter was quantified using a Beckman Coulter scintillation counter. The data for the regional binding distribution studies were analyzed using Prism version 7.0 software for Mac (GraphPad Software Inc., La Jolla, CA, USA), and two-way analysis of variance with multiple comparisons was performed.
Competition binding studies using postmortem brain homogenates from the hippocampus and putamen (0.2 mg/ml tissue) of two patients with AD were performed using 3H-deprenyl (10 nM in Na-K phosphate buffer, pH 7.4) and increasing concentrations of unlabeled THK5117 (10−14 to 10−5 M) and T807 (10−14 to 10−5 M) to determine the off-target binding of the tau PET tracers. After 2-h incubation at room temperature, the binding assay was terminated by filtration through glass fiber filters presoaked for at least 3 h in 0.3% polyethylenimine. To do so, the filters were rinsed and filtered three times using cold binding buffer, and then the radiation on the filter was quantified using a Beckman Coulter scintillation counter. The data from all the binding studies were analyzed using Prism version 7.0 software.
In vitro autoradiography experiment
Postmortem frozen left brain hemispheres from three patients with AD were obtained from the Neuropathology of Dementia Laboratory (Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA) and used for the autoradiography experiment. The frozen sections were allowed to reach room temperature, preincubated for 10 minutes with PBS + 0.1% BSA (pH 7.4), and then incubated for 1 h at room temperature with 3H-THK5351 (3 nM) or 3H-THK5117 (3 nM). The sections were rinsed three times in cold buffer for 5 minutes, followed by a quick dip in cold distilled water. Nonspecific binding was determined using 10 μM unlabeled THK5351 or 10 μM unlabeled THK5117. After waiting 24 h for the sections to dry, the sections were apposed to a tritium standard on a phosphoplate for 3 days and then scanned using a BAS-2500 phosphor imager (Fujifilm, Tokyo, Japan).
Six adjacent sections from AD1 (
see Table
1) were used for competition autoradiography of unlabeled THK5351, T807, and deprenyl. After reaching room temperature, the frozen sections were preincubated for 10 minutes with PBS (pH 7.4) and then incubated for 1 h at room temperature with
3H-THK5351 (1.5 nM) in addition to 10 μM unlabeled THK5351; 10 μM unlabeled deprenyl; 10 μM unlabeled T807; 10 μM unlabeled THK5351 and 10 μM unlabeled deprenyl; 10 μM unlabeled T807 and 10 μM unlabeled deprenyl. The sections were rinsed three times in cold buffer for 5 minutes, followed by a quick dip in cold distilled water. Nonspecific binding was determined using 10 μM unlabeled THK5351 or 10 μM unlabeled THK5117. After waiting 24 h for the sections to dry, the sections were apposed to a tritium standard on a phosphor plate for 3 days and then scanned using the BAS-2500 phosphor imager.
Adjacent sections were used for autoradiography with 11C-THK5351, 11C-PBB3, and 18F-T807. The frozen sections were allowed to reach room temperature, incubated for 30 minutes at room temperature with 11C-THK5351 (0.4–0.56 nM; specific activity 356–532 GBq/μmol) or 11C-PBB3 (0.25–0.34 nM; specific activity 442–794 GBq/μmol) or for 55 minutes at room temperature with 18F-T807 (0.04 nM; specific activity 281 GBq/μmol). We used 10 μM unlabeled THK5351, 10 μM unlabeled PBB3, and 10 μM unlabeled T807 to determine the extent of nonspecific binding for each tracer. The sections were rinsed three times for 5 minutes each with cold binding buffer, followed by a quick dip in cold distilled water. The sections were dried and exposed for 1 h (for 11C-THK5351 and 11C-PBB3) or for 3 h (18 F-T807) on a phosphor imaging plate and then read using the BAS-2500 phosphor imager.
For all the autoradiography studies, the regions of interest were drawn manually on the autoradiogram using multigauge software and were used for the semiquantitative analyses. Photostimulated luminescence per square millimeter (PSL/mm2) was transformed to picomoles per cubic millimeter using a transformation factor that took into account the resolution of the image, the pixel value for the concentration of ligand, and the thickness of the sections: (PSL/mm2 value)/([pixel value per pmol] × [(resolution/1000)2] × [cryosection thickness]/1000).
Discussion
The aim of this study was to compare, using in vitro binding assays and in vitro autoradiography, the available tau PET tracers in the same postmortem tissue from patients with AD. The comparison of the two THK compounds, THK5117 and THK5351, is discussed first. THK5117 was developed as a tau PET ligand and was found to bind to white matter in the brain. THK5351, the latest THK compound, was developed as a pure
S-form enantiomer to lower white matter binding [
24]. The saturation binding curve of
3H-THK5351 showed two binding sites and good binding properties, with a
K
d of 5 nM in the range of the optimum
K
d for a PET tracer. These results are similar to those obtained with THK5117, which also had two binding sites in the saturation experiments [
10]. The head-to-head direct comparison between the two THK compounds using single concentration binding assays in several brain regions showed similar distribution patterns in all the regions studied. These results confirm that the
S-form is the only active form because we used half the concentration for
3H-THK5351 as we did for
3H-THK5117. Autoradiography with frozen hemispheric coronal sections showed similar distribution patterns throughout the cortical ribbon as well as a similar lamination binding pattern, indicating that the tracers target the same tau deposits. We observed more nonspecific binding with THK5117 than with THK5351.
In this study, the binding assay competition between
3H-THK5351 and unlabeled THK5117, unlabeled THK5351, and unlabeled T807 showed that the three unlabeled tracers compete with
3H-THK5351 for at least two binding sites. The THK compounds bind to two similar binding sites: one with a high affinity (
K
i1 0.2 pM) and the other with a much lower affinity (
K
i2 approximately 20 nM). T807 seems to behave differently from
3H-THK5351. Indeed, it was clear that even though it competed for the same high-affinity binding site, T807 competed with fourfold less affinity than THK5351, in the nanomolar range (
K
i2 76 nM). This suggests that targeting of the binding sites in the nanomolar range visible in PET studies will probably differentiate between T807 and the THK compounds. To our knowledge, this is the first study comparing the three families of tau PET tracers in the same brain tissue. The slightly different results observed between
3H and
11C autoradiography studies were most probably due to the emission type as well as to the special protocols needed for the different isotopes. All the autoradiography protocols have been optimized in-house in order to use the optimal binding condition. No ethanol was used in either the binding or rinsing buffer. Three previous studies have compared the different tau PET tracer families in two-by-two batches. The first compared
11C-PBB3 and
18F-AV1451 [
25]; the second compared
3H-AV1451 and
3H-THK523 (one of the first-generation THK compounds) [
26]; and the third compared
18F-T808 (in the same family as T807) and THK5105 (THK family compound) [
27].
Autoradiography studies on frozen hemispheric brain sections using 11C-THK5351 are reported for the first time in this study, to our knowledge. Visual assessment showed similar regional binding distributions for 18F-T807, 11C-THK5351, and 11C-PBB3 in all the analyzed regions. However, using semiquantitative analyses, the specific binding values for 11C-PBB3 were lower than those for 11C-THK5351. This difference in binding intensity may be the result of the molecules targeting different subtypes of tau deposit, which express binding sites with different binding affinities. The semiquantitative data for 18F-T807 were also lower than for either 11C-THK5351 or 11C-PBB3, but the concentrations used for the autoradiography were ten times lower because of the high radioactivity of 18F.
The addition of unlabeled T807 decreased the ability to block 11C-PBB3 binding compared with 11C-THK5351 binding. Those results support the binding assay data. Indeed, the THK compound and T807 seem to share similar binding sites, although they do not have the same affinity for them. In the autoradiography studies, we also observed that unlabeled T807 displaced the binding of 11C-THK5351 in the subcortical regions slightly more than in the cortical region, confirming the off-target binding of T807 in the subcortical region.
Only a few studies are available to compare different tau tracer binding sites in the same populations. Declercq et al. recently compared THK5105 and T807 and suggested a possible similar binding site for the two tracers [
27]. Cai et al. designed a study to develop a new tau deposit tracer with high affinity compared THK523 and T807 with PIB. Their study suggested that THK523 and T807 have two separate binding sites on the NFTs and that those binding sites differ from the thioflavin-T binding site targeted by amyloid PET tracers [
26]. In our study, both
11C-THK5351 and
18F-T807 showed binding in the basal ganglia region. Both THK5351 and AV1451 in vivo PET have shown high binding in the basal ganglia, probably at least partly reflecting off-target binding to MAO-A and MAO-B [
15]. Recently, Ng et al. [
20] demonstrated a diminution of
18F-THK5351 binding in patients after treatment with selegiline (deprenyl) (protocol consisting of one baseline
18F-THK5351 scan, then 1 week later, a second
18F-THK5351 scan 1 h after 10-mg oral dose of selegiline). Owing to our observation of similar MAO-B components for both THK5351 and T807, it would be important to perform similar experiments with in vivo
18F-T807 PET scans following the pretreatment with selegiline. The in vitro
3H-deprenyl binding competition assay with unlabeled THK5117 and unlabeled T807 showed an affinity of approximately 150 nM for both in the putamen and greater than 200 nM in the hippocampus. For tau binding, the
K
i values of THK5117 and T807 are, respectively, 20 nM and 78 nM toward
3H-THK5351. The results of the autoradiography competition studies with unlabeled T807, THK5351, and deprenyl (selegiline) showed that unlabeled T807 displaced
3H-THK5351 binding as much as unlabeled THK5351 in the frontal and temporal cortices, but more in the basal ganglia. These results confirm our hypothesis that THK5351 and T807 behave similarly in AD brain tissue. Unlabeled deprenyl alone displaced more binding in the basal ganglia, a region richer in MAO-B. PBB3 seems to bind differently and to have a unique regional distribution. Moreover, a recent study by Ono et al. [
25], who compared T807 and PBB3 head to head, showed that the two compounds bound to different sites. Regarding the MAO-A, a previous study has shown interaction with MAO-A for T807 [
22,
23]. Note that in the present study we assessed the MAO-A component only for
3H-THK5117 using clorgyline (MAO-A inhibitor) and found a
K
i value of 273 nM for clorgyline toward
3H-THK5117 (
see Additional file
2: Figure S2).
This study has several limitations. It is important to note the differences in techniques between in vitro autoradiography on large frozen tissue sections (80 μm thick) and binding assays in brain homogenates. Indeed, the binding assay in brain homogenates might make more binding sites accessible for binding in comparison to in vitro autoradiography. Moreover, we used different isotopes—3H, 11C, and 18F—with different energy and emission, which could also be a limitation of the study. However, we consider that those different techniques provide valuable complementary information for the characterization of the different tracers. This is important to understanding the different binding sites of the tau PET tracers.
In this study, we focused on the THK compounds as well as PBB3 and T807. Recently, some new tau PET tracer candidates have been reported both at international congresses and in the literature:
18F-MK6240;
18F-RO6958948;
18F-GTP1 (Genentech Tau Probe 1);
18F-PI2620;
18F-JNJ64349311; and new analogues of PBB3,
18F-AM-PBB3 and
18F-PM-PBB3 [
22,
28‐
31]. It will be interesting in the future to perform head-to-head comparisons including these new tau PET tracers.
Interestingly, the cryo-electron microscopic structure of tau fibrils was recently reported by Fitzpatrick et al. [
32]. This new knowledge will allow in silico computer modeling and determination of different binding sites on the tau fibrils, similar to what has already been done for the amyloid fibrils [
33]. This will also help in the characterization and optimization of tau PET tracers using in silico modeling and radiochemistry. Even though we still have to keep in mind that in silico and in vitro behavior is not the same as in vivo, the complementarity of all the different techniques is important for the characterization of PET tracers.