18F-fluoroglutamine

18F-fluoroglutamine is a radiopharmaceutical diagnostic agent and a fluorine-18 labeled analog of the naturally occurring amino acid L-glutamine. It is used as a positron emission tomography (PET) imaging biomarker to non-invasively quantify glutamine flux and metabolism in vivo. In the clinical context of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and scleroderma, 18F-fluoroglutamine is employed to detect metabolic reprogramming within the pulmonary vasculature and the right ventricle. Increased glutamine uptake and metabolism (glutaminolysis) are characteristic of the proliferative and anti-apoptotic cellular phenotypes found in diseased pulmonary vessels. By tracking the transport and initial metabolism of glutamine, this tracer provides a molecular-level assessment of disease severity and early-stage alterations that are often missed by conventional imaging modalities like echocardiography or CT.

Other names

4-fluoro-L-glutamine F-18(2S,4R)-4-fluoroglutamineFluorine-18 fluoroglutamineFluorine18 fluoroglutamineFluorine 18 fluoroglutamine