Abstract #1927

Development and Validation of a Peptide-Vectorized Superparamagnetic Imaging Probe Designed for the Detection of Inflammation in Atherosclerotic Plaque

Carmen Burtea¹, Sophie Laurent¹, Eric Lancelot², Olivier Rousseaux², Sbastien Ballet², Coralie Thirifays¹, Marc Port², Grard Toubeau³, Luce Vander Elst¹, Claire Corot², Robert Nicolas Muller¹

¹General, Organic and Biomedical Chemistry, NMR and Molecular Imaging Laboratory, University of Mons, Mons, Belgium; ²Research Center, Guerbet, Aulnay-sous-Bois, France; ³Laboratory of Histology, University of Mons, Mons, Belgium

A VCAM-1-targeted cyclic heptapeptide peptide was conjugated to USPIO (USPIO-R832), and VCAM-1 binding was first confirmed on HUVEC stimulated with TNF-alpha. Subsequently, USPIO-R832 was evaluated by MRI at 4.7T on ApoE-KO mice, by using T2 and T2*-weighted imaging sequences. The ability to bind to atherosclerotic plaque of this molecular imaging probe was furthermore corroborated by histochemistry. The control imaging probe was represented by USPIO vectorized by a non-specific peptide (USPIO-NSP).