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Title: Fate of tritiated 6-fluorodopamine in rats: A false neurotransmitter for positron emission tomographic imaging of sympathetic innervation and function

Journal Article · · Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics; (USA)
OSTI ID:6273427
; ; ; ;  [1]
  1. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, MD (USA)

In evaluating positron-emitting analogs of dopamine (DA) as imaging agents for visualizing tissue sympathetic innervation and function, we assessed the metabolic fate of systemically injected ({sup 3}H)-6-fluorodopamine (({sup 3}H)-6F-DA) in plasma, in sympathetically innervated tissues (left ventricle, spleen and salivary glands) and in excretory organs (liver and kidney) of rats. By 5 min after intravenous bolus injection of a physiologically inactive amount (450 ng, 10 microCi) of ({sup 3}H)-6F-DA, {sup 3}H was concentrated in all the organs compared with that in blood or plasma. In the sympathetically innervated organs, most of the radioactivity was in ({sup 3}H)-6F-DA and ({sup 3}H)-6-fluoronorepinephrine (( {sup 3}H)-6F-NE), whereas in the blood, plasma and excretory organs most of the radioactivity was in noncatechol compounds such as O-methylated and conjugated metabolites. In sympathetically innervated organs, tissue/blood ratios exceeded 1.0 at all time points between 5 and 120 min after injection of ({sup 3}H)-6F-DA and increased progressively (from 8 to 60 in myocardium), whereas the tissue/blood ratios in the kidney and liver increased by less than 2-fold during this interval. In all the studied tissues, the proportion of total tissue {sup 3}H that was due to ({sup 3}H)F-NE increased progressively while that due to ({sup 3}H)F-DA declined, consistent with conversion of ({sup 3}H)F-DA to ({sup 3}H)F-NE in vesicles in sympathetic nerve endings.

OSTI ID:
6273427
Journal Information:
Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics; (USA), Vol. 255:2; ISSN 0022-3565
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English