title: Metabolic Imaging of Glutamine in Cancer.
abstract: Glucose and glutamine are the most abundant nutrients for producing energy and building blocks in normal and tumor cells. Increased glycolysis in tumors, the Warburg Effect, is the basis for18F-FDG PET imaging. Cancer cells can also be genetically reprogrammed to use glutamine. 5-11C-(2S)-glutamine and18F-(2S,4R)4-fluoroglutamine may be useful complementary tools to measure changes in tumor metabolism. In glioma patients, the tracer18F-(2S,4R)4-fluoroglutamine showed tumor-to-background contrast different from that of18F-FDG and differences in uptake in glioma patients with clinical progression of disease versus stable disease (tumor-to-brain ratio > 3.7 in clinically active glioma tumors, minimal or no specific uptake in clinically stable tumors). These preliminary results suggest that18F-(2S,4R)4-fluoroglutamine PET may be a new tool for probing in vivo metabolism of glutamine in cancer patients and for guiding glutamine-targeted therapeutics. Further studies of uptake mechanism, and comparison of kinetics for18F-(2S,4R)4-fluoroglutamine versus the11C-labeled native glutamine, will be important and enlightening.
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry 82#, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and.
authors.forename: Karl
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ploessl
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and.
authors.forename: Rong
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mankoff
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and kunghf@gmail.com.|Beijing Institute for Brain Disorders, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Hank F
authors.initials: HF
authors.lastname: Kung
mesh_terms: D005973:Glutamine / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D057054:Molecular Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000378:metabolism*; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography
chemical_list: D005973:Glutamine
keywords: 18F-(2S,4R)4-fluoroglutamine; 5-11C-(2S)-glutamine; cancer metabolism; gliomas; glutamine; metabolic imaging