Otaegui Jaume Ramon, Sultan Deborah, Heo Gyu Seong, Liu Yongjian
Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63110, United States.
Chem Biomed Imaging. 2025 Mar 19;3(4):209-224. doi: 10.1021/cbmi.4c00117. eCollection 2025 Apr 28.
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death around the globe. In recent years, a crucial role of the immune system has been acknowledged in cardiac disease progression, opening the door for immunomodulatory therapies. To this ongoing change of paradigm, positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of the immune system has become a remarkable tool to reveal immune cell trafficking and monitor disease progression and treatment response. Currently, PET imaging of the immune system in cardiovascular disease mainly focuses on the innate immune system such as macrophages, while the immune cells of the adaptive immune system including B and T cells are less studied. This can be ascribed to the lack of radiotracers specifically binding to B and T cell biomarkers compatible with PET imaging within the cardiovascular system. In this review, we summarize current knowledge about the role of the adaptive immune system (e.g., B and T cells) in major cardiovascular diseases and introduce key biomarkers for specific targeting of these immune cells and their subpopulations. Finally, we present available radiotracers for these biomarkers and propose a pathway for developing probes or optimizing those already used in other fields (e.g., oncology) to make them compatible with the cardiovascular system.
心血管疾病是全球主要的死亡原因。近年来，免疫系统在心脏病进展中的关键作用已得到认可，这为免疫调节疗法打开了大门。随着这一范式的不断转变，免疫系统的正电子发射断层扫描（PET）成像已成为揭示免疫细胞迁移以及监测疾病进展和治疗反应的重要工具。目前，心血管疾病中免疫系统的PET成像主要集中于先天免疫系统，如巨噬细胞，而对包括B细胞和T细胞在内的适应性免疫系统的免疫细胞研究较少。这可能归因于缺乏与心血管系统内PET成像兼容的、能特异性结合B细胞和T细胞生物标志物的放射性示踪剂。在这篇综述中，我们总结了关于适应性免疫系统（如B细胞和T细胞）在主要心血管疾病中的作用的现有知识，并介绍了针对这些免疫细胞及其亚群进行特异性靶向的关键生物标志物。最后，我们展示了针对这些生物标志物的现有放射性示踪剂，并提出了一条开发探针或优化其他领域（如肿瘤学）已使用的探针以使其与心血管系统兼容的途径。
