A sensitive two-photon probe to selectively detect monoamine oxidase B activity in Parkinson's disease models

Nat Commun. 2014:5:3276. doi: 10.1038/ncomms4276.

Abstract

The unusually high MAO-B activity consistently observed in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients has been proposed as a biomarker; however, this has not been realized due to the lack of probes suitable for MAO-B-specific detection in live cells/tissues. Here we report the first two-photon, small molecule fluorogenic probe (U1) that enables highly sensitive/specific and real-time imaging of endogenous MAO-B activities across biological samples. We also used U1 to confirm the reported inverse relationship between parkin and MAO-B in PD models. With no apparent toxicity, U1 may be used to monitor MAO-B activities in small animals during disease development. In clinical samples, we find elevated MAO-B activities only in B lymphocytes (not in fibroblasts), hinting that MAO-B activity in peripheral blood cells might be an accessible biomarker for rapid detection of PD. Our results provide important starting points for using small molecule imaging techniques to explore MAO-B at the organism level.

Publication types

  • Evaluation Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Case-Control Studies
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Drosophila
  • Female
  • Hep G2 Cells
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mice, Inbred C57BL
  • Molecular Probe Techniques*
  • Molecular Probes / chemistry*
  • Molecular Probes / metabolism
  • Monoamine Oxidase / analysis*
  • Monoamine Oxidase / metabolism
  • Parkinson Disease / enzymology*

Substances

  • Molecular Probes
  • Monoamine Oxidase