Insights into Trace Metal Metabolism in Health and
Disease from PET: “PET Metallomics”
[Abstract]
Essential trace metals such as
copper, zinc, iron, and manganese perform critical functions in cellular and
physiologic processes including catalytic, regulatory, and signaling roles.
Disturbed metal homeostasis is associated with the pathogenesis of diseases
such as dementia, cancer, and inherited metabolic abnormalities. Intracellular
pathways involving essential metals have been extensively studied but
whole-body fluxes and transport between different compartments remain poorly
understood. The growing availability of PET scanners and positron-emitting
isotopes of key essential metals, particularly 64Cu, 63Zn, and 52Mn, provide
new tools with which to study these processes in vivo. This review highlights
opportunities that now present themselves, exemplified by studies of copper
metabolism that are in the vanguard of a new research front in molecular
imaging: “PET metallomics.”
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Source: The Journal of Nuclear Medicine