The study aimed to evaluate the fluorescent molecular-imaging probe 2-(1-[6-[(2-fluoroethyl)(methyl)amino]-2-naphthyl]ethylidene)malononitrile (FDDNP) for its ability to selectively and reproducibly label prion plaques in fixed, paraffin-embedded cerebellar sections from patients of confirmed Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker disease, sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD) with kuru plaques, and variant CJD (vCJD). FDDNP is a highly hydrophobic, viscosity-sensitive, solvent-sensitive, fluorescent substance, whose radiofluorinated analog [18F]FDDNP has recently been successfully used to label senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the living brain of Alzheimer's disease patients with positron emission tomography. Our results show that FDDNP reliably identifies all prion plaques, including small cluster-plaques in vCJD. This finding may open new in vivo diagnostic possibilities for vCJD.
Deposition of conformationally altered proteins prominently characterizes pathogenesis and pathomorphology of a number of neurodegenerative disorders. 2-(1-{6-[(2-[F-18]fluoroethyl) (methyl)amino]-2-naphthyl} ethylidene) malononitrile ([F-18]FDDNP), a hydrophobic, viscosity-sensitive, solvent-sensitive, fluorescent imaging probe has been used with positron emission tomography to visualize brain pathology in the living brain of Alzheimer disease (AD) patients. Its non-radiofluorinated analog FDDNP was shown to label senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) in brain tissue sections. This work aimed at evaluating FDDNP labeling of various protein deposits in fixed, paraffin-embedded brain tissue sections of selected neurodegenerative disorders: AD, cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), Pick disease (PiD), Parkinson disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, multiple system atrophy (MSA). Cerebral hypertensive vascular hyalinosis (HVH) was used as negative control. Significant agreement between amyloid histochemical properties and FDDNP labeling of the deposits was established. FDDNP labeling showed high positive predictive value for birefringence in senile plaques and NFTs in AD, prion plaques and amyloid deposits in CAA. No FDDNP labeled structures were observed in HVH, PSP, PiD or MSA tissue sections. Our findings may be of significant value for the detection of neuropathological aggregates with [F-18]FDDNP in some of these disorders in the living brain of human subjects.
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