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Updated: Aug 14, 2026
Quantitative Analysis and Characterization of Atherosclerotic Lesions in the Murine Aortic Sinus
Published on: December 7, 2013
18F-choline images murine atherosclerotic plaques ex vivo
Christian M Matter1, Matthias T Wyss, Patricia Meier
1Cardiovascular Research, Institute of Physiology, University of Zurich, Cardiovascular Center, Switzerland. cmatter@physiol.unizh.ch
Objective:
Current imaging modalities of atherosclerosis mainly visualize plaque morphology. Valuable insight into plaque biology was achieved by visualizing enhanced metabolism in plaque-derived macrophages using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG). Similarly, enhanced uptake of 18F-fluorocholine (18F-FCH) was associated with macrophages surrounding an abscess. As macrophages are important determinants of plaque vulnerability, we tested 18F-FCH for plaque imaging.
Methods And Results:
We injected 18F-FCH (n=5) or 18F-FDG (n=5) intravenously into atherosclerotic apolipoprotein E-deficient mice. En face measurements of aortae isolated 20 minutes after 18F-FCH injections demonstrated an excellent correlation between fat stainings and autoradiographies (r=0.842, P<0.0001), achieving a sensitivity of 84% to detect plaques by 18F-FCH. In contrast, radiotracer uptake 20 minutes after 18F-FDG injections correlated less with en face fat stainings (r=0.261, P<0.05), reaching a sensitivity of 64%. Histological analyses of cross-sections 20 minutes after coinjections of 18F-FCH and 14C-FDG (n=3) showed that 18F-FCH uptake correlated better with fat staining (r=0.740, P<0.0001) and macrophage-positive areas (r=0.740, P<0.0001) than 14C-FDG (fat: r=0.236, P=0.29 and CD68 staining: r=0.352, P=0.11), respectively.
Conclusions:
18F-FCH identifies murine plaques better than 18F-FDG using ex vivo imaging. Enhanced 18F-FCH uptake into macrophages may render this tracer a promising candidate for imaging plaques in patients.
