PET imaging of neuroinflammation: any credible alternatives to TSPO yet?

Over the last decades, the role of neuroinflammation in neuropsychiatric conditions has attracted an exponentially growing interest. A key driver for this trend was the ability to image brain inflammation in vivo using PET radioligands targeting the Translocator Protein 18 kDa (TSPO), which is known to be expressed in activated microglia and astrocytes upon inflammatory events as well as constitutively in endothelial cells. TSPO is a mitochondrial protein that is expressed mostly by microglial cells upon activation but is also expressed by astrocytes in some conditions and constitutively by endothelial cells.

Charge detection mass spectrometry on human-amplified fibrils from different synucleinopathies.

Amyloid fibrils are self-assembled mesoscopic protein aggregates, which can accumulate to form deposits or plaques in the brain. amplification of fibrils can be achieved with real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC). However, this emerging technique would benefit from a complementary method to assess structural properties of the amplification products.