Department of Radiology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA.
Department of Urology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, China.
Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Dec 3;22(23):13085. doi: 10.3390/ijms222313085.
Neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC) is an aggressive and lethal variant of prostate cancer (PCa), and it remains a diagnostic challenge. Herein we report our findings of using synaptic vesicle glycoprotein 2 isoform A (SV2A) as a promising marker for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of neuroendocrine differentiation (NED). The bioinformatic analyses revealed an amplified SV2A gene expression in clinical samples of NEPC versus castration-resistant PCa with adenocarcinoma characteristics (CRPC-Adeno). Importantly, significantly upregulated SV2A protein levels were found in both NEPC cell lines and tumor tissues. PET imaging studies were carried out in NEPC xenograft models with F-SynVesT-1. Although F-SynVesT-1 is not a cancer imaging agent, it showed a significant uptake level in the SV2A tumor (NCI-H660: 0.70 ± 0.14 %ID/g at 50-60 min p.i.). The SV2A blockade resulted in a significant reduction of tumor uptake (0.25 ± 0.03 %ID/g, = 0.025), indicating the desired SV2A imaging specificity. Moreover, the comparative PET imaging study showed that the DU145 tumors could be clearly visualized by F-SynVesT-1 but not Ga-PSMA-11 nor Ga-DOTATATE, further validating the role of SV2A-targeted imaging for noninvasive assessment of NED in PCa. In conclusion, we demonstrated that SV2A, highly expressed in NEPC, can serve as a promising target for noninvasive imaging evaluation of NED.
神经内分泌前列腺癌 (NEPC) 是一种侵袭性和致命性的前列腺癌 (PCa) 变体,仍然是一个诊断挑战。在此,我们报告了使用突触小泡糖蛋白 2 同工型 A (SV2A) 作为神经内分泌分化 (NED) 的正电子发射断层扫描 (PET) 成像有前途的标志物的研究结果。生物信息学分析显示,与具有腺癌特征的去势抵抗性 PCa (CRPC-Adeno) 相比,NEPC 临床样本中 SV2A 基因表达扩增。重要的是,在 NEPC 细胞系和肿瘤组织中均发现 SV2A 蛋白水平显著上调。在 NEPC 异种移植模型中进行了 F-SynVesT-1 的 PET 成像研究。尽管 F-SynVesT-1 不是癌症成像剂,但它在 SV2A 肿瘤中显示出显著的摄取水平 (NCI-H660:50-60 分钟时为 0.70 ± 0.14 %ID/g)。SV2A 阻断导致肿瘤摄取显著减少 (0.25 ± 0.03 %ID/g, = 0.025),表明所需的 SV2A 成像特异性。此外,比较性 PET 成像研究表明,F-SynVesT-1 可清晰显示 DU145 肿瘤,但 Ga-PSMA-11 和 Ga-DOTATATE 则不能,进一步验证了针对 SV2A 的成像在非侵入性评估 PCa 中 NED 的作用。总之,我们证明了在 NEPC 中高度表达的 SV2A 可作为 NED 无创评估的有前途的靶标。