PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Tang, Wayland AU - Galitovskiy, Valentin AU - Sevrioukov, Evegueni AU - Pan, Min-Liang AU - Constantinescu, Cristian AU - Grando, Sergei AU - Mukherjee, Jogeshwar TI - <sup>18</sup>F-FAHA PET for imaging histone deacetylase in lung cancer DP - 2011 May 01 TA - Journal of Nuclear Medicine PG - 411--411 VI - 52 IP - supplement 1 4099 - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/52/supplement_1/411.short 4100 - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/52/supplement_1/411.full SO - J Nucl Med2011 May 01; 52 AB - 411 Objectives Histone deacetylase has been imaged using 18F-FAHA and may serve as a marker to study epigenetics. We report evaluation of 18F-FAHA as a probe in the early diagnosis of lung cancer using longitudinal MicroPET/MicroCT 18F-FAHA studies of A/J mice treated with NNK. Methods 18F-FAHA radiosynthesis was carried out in specific activity of ~2 Ci/μmol as reported (Mukhopadhyay 2006). A/J mice acquired from Jackson Labs were divided into 2 groups: 1. Controls for CT/PET; 2. NNK treatment group for CT/PET. Group 2 animals received NNK (100 mg/kg, ip, weekly for 4 wks). Mice were injected 50-100 μCi i.v. 18F-FAHA and then scanned in Inveon MicroPET/CT under anesthesia using 2.0% isoflurane. Ex vivo PET/CT scans of lungs were also obtained on some mice after the in vivo scans. Sections (5 to 10μm thick) of the isolated lungs were prepared for H&amp;E staining and autoradiographic studies. Results MicroCT revealed presence of lung nodules in 8 mo old mice while control mice were free of tumors. Little uptake of 18F-FAHA was in the control mice lungs while significant amount of 18F-FAHA was seen in the lungs of NNK treated mice. Quantitative analysis of the extent and amount of 18F-FAHA binding provided in vivo lung tumor/nontumor = &gt;2.0. Studies of control A/J mice lungs showed little binding of 18F-FAHA, uniformly distributed. Ex vivo scans of the excised NNK and control mice lungs confirmed presence of extensive amounts of lung nodules seen by CT and confirmed by 18F-FAHA in the NNK mice while no tumors were detected in the control mice. Conclusions Our preliminary imaging studies with A/J mice lung cancer model suggests 18F-FAHA PET may allow the study of epigenetic mechanisms involved in NNK induced tumorigenesis in the lungs. Further studies on the ability of 18F-FAHA to detect the lung tumors earlier are underway