(11)C-meta-hydroxyephedrine PET/CT imaging allows in vivo study of adaptive thermogenesis and white-to-brown fat conversion

Carmelo Quarta; Filippo Lodi; Roberta Mazza; Ferdinando Giannone; Laura Boschi; Cristina Nanni; Enzo Nisoli; Stefano Boschi; Renato Pasquali; Stefano Fanti; Patricia Iozzo; Uberto Pagotto

doi:10.1016/j.molmet.2013.04.002

(11)C-meta-hydroxyephedrine PET/CT imaging allows in vivo study of adaptive thermogenesis and white-to-brown fat conversion

Mol Metab. 2013 Apr 21;2(3):153-60. doi: 10.1016/j.molmet.2013.04.002. eCollection 2013.

Authors

Carmelo Quarta¹, Filippo Lodi, Roberta Mazza, Ferdinando Giannone, Laura Boschi, Cristina Nanni, Enzo Nisoli, Stefano Boschi, Renato Pasquali, Stefano Fanti, Patricia Iozzo, Uberto Pagotto

Affiliation

¹ Endocrinology Unit and Center for Applied Biomedical Research, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna 40138, Italy ; Department of Nuclear Medicine, S. Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, University of Bologna, Bologna 40138, Italy.

Abstract

Several lines of evidence suggest that novel pharmacological approaches aimed at converting white adipose tissue (WAT) into brown adipose tissue (BAT) may represent an effective therapeutic strategy for obesity and related disorders. ((18))F-fluorodeoxyglucose ((18)F-FDG) is the only positron emission tomography (PET) tracer commonly used to study BAT function, and so far no functional tools have been described to investigate in vivo white-to-brown fat conversion. In this report, we show that the PET tracer (11)C-meta-hydroxyephedrine ((11)C-MHED, a norepinephrine analogue) is a useful tool to investigate the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity in BAT of lean and dietary obese mice. Moreover, we demonstrate that (11)C-MHED is a specific marker of the SNS-mediated thermogenesis in typical BAT depots, and that this tracer can detect in vivo WAT to BAT conversion.

Keywords: Brown adipose tissue; PET/CT imaging; Sympathetic activity.