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High sensitivity imaging tools could provide a more holistic view of target antigen expression to improve the identification of patients who might benefit from cancer immunotherapy. We developed for immunoPET a novel recombinant human IgG1 (termed C4) that potently binds an extracellular epitope on human and mouse PD-L1 and radiolabeled the antibody with zirconium-89. Small animal PET/CT studies showed that 89Zr-C4 detected antigen levels on a patient derived xenograft (PDX) established from a non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patient before an 8-month response to anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA4 therapy. Importantly, the concentration of antigen is beneath the detection limit of previously developed anti-PD-L1 radiotracers, including radiolabeled atezolizumab. We also show that 89Zr-C4 can specifically detect antigen in human NSCLC and prostate cancer models endogenously expressing a broad range of PD-L1. 89Zr-C4 detects mouse PD-L1 expression changes in immunocompetent mice, suggesting that endogenous PD-1/2 will not confound human imaging. Lastly, we found that 89Zr-C4 could detect acute changes in tumor expression of PD-L1 due to standard of care chemotherapies. In summary, we present evidence that low levels of PD-L1 in clinically relevant cancer models can be imaged with immunoPET using a novel recombinant human antibody.

Background: The correction of γ-photon attenuation in PET-MRI remains a critical issue, especially for bone attenuation. This problem is of great importance for brain studies due to the density of the skull. Current techniques for skull attenuation correction (AC) provide indirect estimates of cortical bone density, leading to inaccurate estimates of brain activity. The purpose of this study was to develop an alternate method for bone attenuation correction based on NMR. The proposed approach relies on the detection of hydroxyapatite crystals by zero echo time (ZTE) MRI of P, providing individual and quantitative assessment of bone density. This work presents a proof of concept of this approach. The first step of the method is a calibration experiment to determine the conversion relationship between the P signal and the linear attenuation coefficient μ. Then P-ZTE was performed in vivo in rodent to estimate the μ-map of the skull. F-FDG PET data were acquired in the same animal and reconstructed with three different AC methods: P-based AC, AC neglecting the bone and the gold standard, CT-based AC, used to comparison for the other two methods. Results: The calibration experiment provided a conversion factor of P signal into μ. In vivo P-ZTE made it possible to acquire 3D images of the rat skull. Brain PET images showed underestimation of F activity in peripheral regions close to the skull when AC neglected the bone (as compared with CT-based AC). The use of P-derived μ-map for AC leads to increased peripheral activity, and therefore a global overestimation of brain F activity. Conclusions: In vivo P-ZTE MRI of hydroxyapatite provides μ-map of the skull, which can be used for attenuation correction of F-FDG PET images. This study is limited by several intrinsic biases associated with the size of the rat brain, which are unlikely to affect human data on a clinical PET-MRI system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prion transmission can occur by blood transfusion in human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and in experimental animal models, including sheep. Screening of blood and its derivatives for the presence of prions became therefore a major public health issue. As infectious titer in blood is reportedly low, highly sensitive and robust methods are required to detect prions in blood and blood derived products. The objectives of this study were to compare different methods - in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo assays - to detect prion infectivity in cells prepared from blood samples obtained from scrapie infected sheep at different time points of the disease. Protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) and bioassays in transgenic mice expressing the ovine prion protein were the most efficient methods to identify infected animals at any time of the disease (asymptomatic to terminally-ill stages). However scrapie cell and cerebellar organotypic slice culture assays designed to replicate ovine prions in culture also allowed detection of prion infectivity in blood cells from asymptomatic sheep. These findings confirm that white blood cells are appropriate targets for preclinical detection and introduce ex vivo tools to detect blood infectivity during the asymptomatic stage of the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measurements of the presence of prions in biological tissues or fluids rely more and more on cell-free assays. Although protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) has emerged as a valuable, sensitive tool, it is currently hampered by its lack of robustness and rapidity for high-throughput purposes. Here, we made a number of improvements making it possible to amplify the maximum levels of scrapie prions in a single 48-h round and in a microplate format. The amplification rates and the infectious titer of the PMCA-formed prions appeared similar to those derived from the in vivo laboratory bioassays. This enhanced technique also amplified efficiently prions from different species, including those responsible for human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. This new format should help in developing ultrasensitive, high-throughput prion assays for cognitive, diagnostic, and therapeutic applications. IMPORTANCE The method developed here allows large-scale, fast, and reliable cell-free amplification of subinfectious levels of prions from different species. The sensitivity and rapidity achieved approach or equal those of other recently developed prion-seeded conversion assays. Our simplified assay may be amenable to high-throughput, automated purposes and serve in a complementary manner with other recently developed assays for urgently needed antemortem diagnostic tests, by using bodily fluids containing small amounts of prion infectivity. Such a combination of assays is of paramount importance to reduce the transfusion risk in the human population and to identify asymptomatic carriers of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.