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Optical Imaging Probes for Amyloid Diseases in Brain

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Book cover Neurohistology and Imaging Techniques

Part of the book series: Neuromethods ((NM,volume 153))

Abstract

As amyloid fibril accumulation currently represents the key pathological evidence for a number of neurodegenerative disorders, a range of optical imaging probes have been developed in the past to visualize these infectious proteins. To some extent, they make it possible to characterize neuronal diseases in a postmortem state, that is, on sections of patients’ brains. However, many of the probes are of limited use for in vivo brain imaging, due to the lack of blood–brain barrier permeability and absorption/scattering of weak fluorescence signals deep in the neural tissue. Recently developed probes with significantly improved imaging properties partly amend such problems. These include near-infrared, two-photon, and phosphorescent imaging probes, as well as those selective for certain amyloid types, and for detecting enzymatic activity linked to the amyloid disease progression. Obviously, this has important medical implications, as a disease can be more reliably diagnosed and its progress detected at an early stage.

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Abbreviations

AD:

Alzheimer’s disease

APP:

Amyloid precursor protein

Aβ:

Amyloid beta

BBB:

Blood–brain barrier

CR:

Congo red

HOMO:

Highest occupied molecular orbital

LUMO:

Lowest unoccupied molecular orbital

PET:

Positron emission tomography

PiB:

Pittsburgh compound B

ThS/ThT:

Thioflavin S/T

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2018K2A9A2A08000087, NRF-2019R1A2C3008463) and the Organelle Network Research Center (NRF-2017R1A5A1015366). HWR also acknowledges support from the KBRI basic research program through Korea Brain Research Institute funded by Ministry of Science and ICT (17-BR-01, 19-BR-04-01).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, Republic of Korea

    Pratyush Kumar Mishra & Myeong-Gyun Kang

  2. Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Hyun-Woo Rhee

Authors
  1. Pratyush Kumar Mishra
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  2. Myeong-Gyun Kang
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  3. Hyun-Woo Rhee
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Correspondence to Hyun-Woo Rhee .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Czech Academy of Sciences and Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    Radek Pelc

  2. Department of Psychiatry, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

    Wolfgang Walz

  3. Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

    J. Ronald Doucette

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Mishra, P.K., Kang, MG., Rhee, HW. (2020). Optical Imaging Probes for Amyloid Diseases in Brain. In: Pelc, R., Walz, W., Doucette, J.R. (eds) Neurohistology and Imaging Techniques. Neuromethods, vol 153. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0428-1_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0428-1_5

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